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Father-son relationship essays on the novel night by elie wiesel
Father-son relationship essays on the novel night by elie wiesel
Essay on elie wiesel character
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The book “Night” contains the motif of father and son. One of the stories from the book includes a son who does not stay devoted to his father. However, Elie Wiesel remains true to his father throughout the book for three main reasons: he sacrifices his rations of food for his father; he protects and stands up for his father; and he avoids being separated from his father. Elie cedes his rations of food for his father. For example, “I gave him what was left of my soup” (page 112). Elie gives his father his soup even when his father is sick and will not survive for much longer. This is relevant, because the prisoners were given insufficient amounts of food, and they were severely malnutritioned. Therefore, Elie was basically killing himself to ease his father’s pain. In contrast, “But it was with a heavy heart. I felt that I was giving it up to him against my will” (page 112). In other words, he gave his father his soup unwillingly, and he didn’t necessarily want to help his father. Elie protects and takes care of his father during the entire story. For instance, “But alas, Franek knew where to touch me; he knew my weak point … This was Franek’s chance to torment my father and thrash him savagely every day… I decided to give my father lessons myself…” (page 63). Eliezer helps teach his father how to march, so that Franek would stop abusing him. …show more content…
As an illustration, “... I did not want to be separated from my father. We had already suffered so much, borne so much together; this was not the time to be separated” (page 88). During the Holocaust, Elie and his father could only trust each other. He does not want to be separated from his father, because he knows that they need each other in order to survive. However, “ ‘Here, every man has to fight for himself and not think of anyone else’... He was right…” (page 115). Elie realizes that in the concentration camps everyone has to worry about themselves
In his memoir, Night, author Elie Wiesel describes the horrors he experienced during the Holocaust. One prominent theme throughout the work is the evolution of human relationships within the camp, specifically between fathers and sons. While they are marching between camps, Elie speaks briefly with Rabbi Eliahu, who lost sight of his son on the long journey. Elie says he has not seen the rabbi’s son, but after Rabbi Eliahu leaves, he remembers seeing the son. He realizes that the rabbi’s son did not lose track of his father but instead purposefully ran ahead thinking it would increase his chances of survival. Elie, who has abandoned nearly all of his faith in God, cannot help but pray, saying, “ ‘ Oh God, Master of the Universe, give me the strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahu’s son has done’ ” (Wiesel 91). In this moment, his most fervent hope is that he will remain loyal to his father and not let his selfishness overcome his dedication to his father. However, he is soon no longer able to maintain this hope.
In his novel Night, Elie Wiesel shows the importance of family as a source of strength to carry on. The main character of the novel is a thirteen-year-old boy named Eliezer. He and his family were taken from their home and placed in a concentration camp. He was separated from his mother and sisters during the selection once they arrived in the camp. His father was the only family he had left with him to face the inhumane environment of the camp. Many of the prisoners lost the will to live due to the conditions. During the marches between camps some of these broken souls would drop to the side of the road where they we...
In Elie Wiesel’s novel, Night, he tells of his struggles as a victim during the Holocaust of World War II. The following quote exhibits one struggle faced by those participating in the war, the battle between staying true to family commitment or saving one’s self, “Listen to me, kid. Don’t forget that you are in a concentration camp. In this place, it is every man for himself, and you cannot think of others” (110). As designated in the passage the Blockälteste is warning Elie to start thinking of himself and not his father. The idea of leaving someone’s own father behind is a terrible outcome of war; however it is the reality of many people who have decided to save themselves. The choice between self-preservation and family commitment is a harsh reality that exists in all wars and is particularly present in related literature.
Before Elie Wiesel and his father are deported, they do not have a significant relationship. They simply acknowledge each other’s existence and that is all. Wiesel recalls how his father rarely shows emotion while he was living in Sighet, Transylvania. When they are deported, Wiesel is not sure what to expect. He explains, “My hand shifted on my father’s arm. I had one thought-not to lose him. Not to be left alone” (Wiesel 27). Once he and his father arrive at Auschwitz, the boy who has never felt a close connection with his father abruptly realizes that he cannot lose him, no matter what. This realization is something that will impact Wiesel for the rest of his time at the camp.
...ith his near-death experiences that cause him trauma. As he and his father invert roles, and Elie becomes the bread-winning patriarch of the bunch, obligated to tending and making sure his father is fed properly, Elie’s loss of innocence and childhood evaporate with his restoration of faith in humanity. He learns that among the prisoners, fending for their own individual weight is the only way to survive. Separate from Elie and his father’s relationship throughout, fathers and sons collide, and friends betray other friends. But Elie’s own weight comes from his father, and yet when he refuses to betray him also, Elie’s own bravery reveals itself, making him the key survivor out of all of them. While he chooses to battle out his conscience to decipher these decisions to survive for his family or for he himself, he gains courage, and the courage to oblige to his faith.
In the book Night, Elie’s father was very ill and he desperately needs help from his son. His father asked for water and wanted to talk with his son, but Elie refused to talk with him and give him some water. Also, he remained calm when his father was harassed by the guards. In the book, Elie said “Then I had to go to sleep”(Wiesel 112) and after his father’s death, the thing he said wasn’t about his sadness. It was about his freedom. He said, “Free at last”(Wiesel 112). Elie is not the old Elie anymore. Because of the circumstance of the camp, the pure and caring boy changed into a boy with an empty heart. Elie says “Since father's death, nothing mattered to me anymore”(Wiesel 113). His heart that was filled with joy and caring
In the final moments of Night, Elie has been broken down to only the most basic ideas of humanity; survival in it of itself has become the only thing left for him to cling to. After the chain of unfortunate events that led to his newfound solitude after his father’s abrupt death, Elie “thought only to eat. [He] thought not of [his] father, or [his] mother” (113). He was consumed with the ideas of survival, so he repeatedly only expressed his ideas of gluttony rather than taking the time to consider what happened to his family. The stress of survival allocated all of Elie’s energy to that cause alone. Other humanistic feelings like remorse, love, and faith were outcast when they seemed completely unimportant to his now sole goal of survival. The fading of his emotions was not sudden mishap though; he had been worn away with time. Faith was one of the most prominent key elements in Elie’s will to continue, but it faded through constant. During the hanging of a young boy Elie heard a man call to the crowd pleading, “Where is merciful God, where is He?” (64). It snapped Elie’s resolve. From this point on, he brought up and questioned his faith on a regular basis. Afterwards, most other traits disappeared like steam after a fire is extinguished. Alone in the wet embers the will to survive kept burning throughout the heart ache. When all else is lost, humans try to survive for no reason other than to survive, and Wiesel did survive. He survived with mental scars that persisted the ten long years of his silence. Even now after his suffering has, Elie continues to constantly repeat the word never throughout his writing. To write his memoir he was forced to reopen the lacerations the strains of survival left inside his brain. He strongly proclaims, “Never shall I forget that night...Never shall I forget the smoke...Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the
His father is getting old, and weak, and Elie realizes his father does not have the strength to survive on his own, and it is too late to save him. "It's too late to save your old father, I said to myself..."(pg 105). He felt guilty because he could not help his father, but he knew the only way to live is to watch out for himself. "Here, every man has to fight for himself and not think of anyone else. Even of his father..."(pg 105). He thinks of himself, and
In Night, it is discovered that atrocities and cruel treatment can make decent people into brutes. Elie himself also shows signs of becoming a brute for his survival, but escapes this fate, which is shown through his interactions with his father. Firstly, Elie’s moral side, overcoming the temptation to be a brute, is shown through his love for his father. However, despite these thoughts, he still decided to support his father, which helps him detour away from the path to being a brute.
...ow much more independent he has become. His reaction to his father's death also represents this loss of innocence: “I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. But I was out of tears” (Wiesel 112). This scene reveals the fact that Elie has realized that there are many evils in the world. His lack of emotion and tears shows that he understands how bad the Nazis' actions are and how cruel the world can be. This realization ultimately represents his loss of innocence and maturation.
When his father was beat up by the guard or even he was getting beat up by the Kapo. Elie could only think of himself, which is a good thing not wanting to get hurt for others in my opinion. Also, when Rabbi’s son ran away from him I would guess Elie would think of the same thing but instead wanted to protect his father. Then last when Elie’s father was about to die his last words was, “Elizer” which was Elies name. Elie was finally think that his duty is over on protecting his father. Also, Elie also thought, “free at last” which meant his can fend for him. So, his relationship with his father wasn’t good. Cause Elie thought the reason he is alive because of his father. That is why his relationship with his father wasn’t a good
First and foremost, Elie begins to question himself and his morals as a person. He acknowledges that the way he was behaving wasn’t like his normal self. “What had happened to me? My father had just been struck, in front of me, and I had not even blinked. I had watched and kept silent. Only yesterday, I would have dug my nails into this criminal's flesh. Had I changed that much? So fast? Remorse began to gnaw at me. All I could think was: I shall never forgive them for this.” (39) Elie seems to have become numb to the violence going on around him at this point. Elie watched his father get hit for simply asking where the restrooms were located, yet he stayed silent to protect his own skin. He loses his faith in himself and his will to stand up for what is right.
In Eliezer Wiesel’s novel “Night”, it depicts the life of a father and son going through the concentration camp of World War II. Both Eliezer and his father are taken from their home, where they would experience inhuman and harsh conditions in the camps. The harsh conditions caused Eliezer and his father’s relationship to change. During their time in the camps, Eliezer Wiesel and his father experience a reversal of their roles. Upon entering the concentration camps, Eliezer and his father demonstrate a normal father and son relationship.
“My father's presence was the only thing that stopped me. He was running next to me, out of breath, out of strength, desperate. I had no right to let myself die. What would he do without me? I was his sole support.” This quote from the book night represents the father son relationship in the book written by Elie Wiesel. Elie Wiesel was a famous writer and a Holocaust survivor. He wrote many nonfiction books, and night being one of his most successful. Through this book, Elie Wiesel indicated that when night came bad things happened. Elie, a young Jewish boy, and his family were forced into small ghettos by Nazis during World War II. Elie and his family later departed to the unknown were the Nazis sent them to a concentration camp in Auschwitz.
Elie really needs and wants his father to live. When the SS guards yell "Throw out all the dead! Corpses outside!" the guards were going to throw Elie's father out but Elie said, "I threw myself on top of his body, he was cold. I slapped him. I rubbed his hands crying: Father! Father! Wake up! They are trying to throw you out of the carriage" The SS guards yelled" Leave him. You can see perfectly well that he's dead." Elie replied, "No! He isn't dead! not yet!!" On page 286 of the interview with Oprah, Elie explains how he needed his father to live and survive himself by saying "As long as my father was alive, i wanted to live- but only because of him. After he died, between January and April [of the year we were released], I didn't really live."