The Holocaust was one of the most important and tragic events of the last century, leaving a lasting effect on the victims. Elie Wiesel, a Jewish teenager who survived the Holocaust tells his story in his memoir, Night He describes his experience at the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps revealing the physical and emotional pain he underwent as well as his changing perspective on faith and identity. Throughout the memoir Wiesel goes through significant changes in his faith, identity and religious views. A pivotal moment in Elie’s journey is when he and his father arrive at Birkenau, and witness the persecution of the Jews. What Elie witnessed horrifies him and he begins to doubt God saying “For the first time, I felt anger rising …show more content…
Throughout the book, Elie suffers from the loss of hope, but it is when for a moment he thinks his father has that is when he reaches rock bottom. At this point Elie sees death as an inevitable fate, and he sees no need to live or fight Elie's expression of feeling entirely lost and defeat reflects this loss of purpose and hope.The line, "There was no longer any reason to live, any reason to fight" (Wiesel 99) reflects Elie's despair as he looks to find purpose in a world empty of sense and reason. This quote highlights how Elie's faith has been broken by his experiences, as he battles to find any reason to live. Together with his other remarks, such as his doubts about the purpose of prayer and his anger at God. Sadly, eventually his father becomes very ill and dies in Buchenwald. His loss of his father leads to lack of will to live and emotion. Elie gets transferred to a children's block after the death of his father and he describes his miserable state in his life during that period saying "I shall not describe my life during that period. It no longer mattered. Since my father's death, nothing mattered to me anymore" (Wiesel 113). The quote "Since my father's death, nothing mattered to me anymore" (Wiesel 113) shows he lost his sense of purpose for live, this shows throughout the rest of the book, this quote also shows how much he was holding on to his father, how he didn’t want to split up with him. Both quotes connect to the theme of loss of faith He feels that nothing matters anymore, and there is no reason to live or
Night is a book where a baby was used as a shooting target. This was one of the first things that started to change Elie Wiesel. Eile Wiesel is the writer and the main character of the book Night. Eile was one of the lucky people who survived the traumatic hardships of the holocaust and who could educate the world about it. Overall, Eile is a dynamic character because his faith, feelings, and mindset changed throughout the book.
In the text Night by Elie Wiesel, Eliezer suffered a full dreadful year in a concentration camp. This allows for lots of changes to him, and his thoughts. Throughout this novel Elie experienced a lot of significant alterations. A couple of main changes include his loss of religion, his reactions to traumatic situations, and his feelings towards his father. Although there are many shifts in Wiesel throughout his time in the concentration camp system, there are three notable quotes where change is present.
In this moment, Elie is feeling deep sorrow for the loss of his father, and sits in his bunk emotionless. Not only does Elie feel the emotional pain from the loss of his father, but also the motivation that his father gave him to keep fighting and stay alive. Wiesel even goes as far as to say after his liberation “I shall not describe my life during that time. It no longer mattered” (Wiesel 113). This quote helps the reader understand the emotion going through Wiesel and many other survivors at the time.
In the book Night, the first night in camp is the worst experience that happened to Elie. For example, the author knew that the camp is where his nightmare began, “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night...” (page 34) This illustrates that Wiesel’s life completely changed since he separated from his mother and sister, the camp is where Nazis wanted all faiths and hopes of prisoners are gone to be able to survive in the camp you have to believe, pray and help others. Furthermore, when the narrator said one long night it’s shows that he never see the sun again, which mean Elie thought he couldn’t survive through this camp, it brought all his dreams and his family away.
He was not moving. Suddenly, the evidence overwhelmed me: there was no longer any reason to live, any reason to fight.” This quote helps display Wiesel’s strong bond and love for his father. When Wiesel believes his father has passed, straightaway he feels vanquished and no longer wants to endure life without
At the end Elie feels after the death of his father he has nothing to live for. The meaning of
In the beginning of the story, Elie goes through traumatic experiences with questioning his religion and even contemplating suicide. Elie speaks out by stating, “That's what I wanted to do. To scream out, to cry out—to die. But I no longer had the strength to do so. I was alone.
Never shall I forget those moments that butchered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes. Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.” (34) Elie’s fear is a major force that is put on him and is described as a nightmare. Love and Belonging Needs is the next stage that lacks with Elie throughout the course of the book.
The holocaust was one of the most devastating events that more than six million Jews lost their lives to. After the events of the second world war the population of Jews around the world was less than four millions. Among the very few people that survived the concentration/elimination camps Eliezer Wiesel was among them. While many people wanted to forget and never talk about the events of the second world war, Wiesel wants the whole world to know what atrocities the Nazis put the Jews through. So in the novel Night by Eliezer Wiesel, the author demonstrates the destruction caused by the Nazis in the Holocaust through the themes of family,faith and strength.
In the memoir Night, Elie Wiesel describes his Holocaust experiences with his father in the Nazi German Concentration camps. In the novel, Wiesel writes about the Holocaust in a way that it can't be forgotten. Between 1933-1945 European Jews were the vicitims of a genocide known as the holocaust. Night tells the story of a young Jewish child who endured the misery of the concentration camps ran by the Nazi's, and how this experience changed him forever, This experience changed Elie Wiesel because he endured countless and numerous beatings at the hands of Nazi forces, suffers starvation, and witnesses his own father's death before his very eyes. These events that Elie endures throughout the holocaust transforms his life, his thinking and
An important quote I found from chapters seven through nine was, “Suddenly, the evidence overwhelmed me: there was no longer any reason to live, any reason to fight” (99). This quote is saying that Elie had given up all the hope he had left to live. He was ready and prepared to die because he felt as though there was no reason left for him to live. This quote is important to Elie’s experiences because he saw so much sickness, weakness, and death that made him lose hope in his survival. He saw people dying right in front of his eyes and knew there was nothing he could do to help them.
But above all that, he has to observe his own father, the man he says he tries so hard to live for, die a slow, unbearably painful death. Even after the death of his father, Elie somehow survives his way through the unfathomable struggles, though he does say that he felt nothing really mattered after the loss of his dad. Amazingly, Elie Wiesel is able to endure these terrible tragedies and still he survives; still he
In his memoir, Elie Wiesel writes, “Since my father's death, nothing mattered to me anymore” (113), showing that his reason for living had left him. He also states that he had “only one desire: to eat. [He] no longer thought of [his] father…” (113), which allows the reader to comprehend that with no reason to live, instinct had taken over. Somehow, he indifferently fought to survive, but it was very clear that his beliefs on life had changed
It becomes clear that Elie’s father will die without the care and attention he is providing him. Eli becomes conflicted over the fact that it is becoming too difficult to keep his father alive. Elie admits he believes, “Yet at the same time I thought crept into my mind: If only I didn’t find him! If only I were relieved of this responsibility, I could use all my strength to fight for my own survival, to take care only of myself”( Wiesel 106). Elie begins to face the issue of either choosing his survival or to continue fighting to keep his father alive.
The loss of of Elies father leads to Elies biggest shift in attitude and identity. Proof of this is when Elie says “I REMAINED IN BUCHENWALD until April 11. I shall not describe my life during that period. It no longer mattered. Since my father's death, nothing mattered to me anymore.”