“Death is not the greatest lost in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live." -Norman Cousins. Emotional death can cause someone to not notice something that are happening around them due to them being around it so much. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Wiesel and his father are deported and relocated to different concentration camps. After many years of being movedstuck from camp to camp Wiesel was liberated. The Jewish prisoners experienced emotional death while they lost their loved ones, experienced cruel treatments, and were desensitized due to horrific murders. Some causes of emotional death is the loss offrom losing their loved ones. This is shown by Wiesel that when, “my father’s death, nothing mattered,”(113).
Trauma’s Effect on Identity Life experiences such as trauma shape and reshape people into their individual identities. Things such as faith, mannerisms, and general world views are all affected by a unique human experience on earth. This development of an individual is unveiled in Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night. Through this novel, he details his experience in a concentration camp during WWII and thoroughly showcases how such agonizing life events affected him, which he usually describes through metaphorical light and dark and his development/loss of faith through this part of his life. In later speeches Eliezer makes, he explains his opinions on indifference in our world as worse than evil and some basic research of trauma responses in humans
In the book Night, the main character, Elie Wiesel sacrificed a lot. As a child, Elie had to sacrifice the life he had once lived with his family after being taken to the concentration camp. As soon as he gets to the camp he starts to make these sacrifices, not only for him, but also for his father. When the Nazi’s were going through the women and children, Elie lied about his age so that he could stay with his father and work. Elie did not know at the time, but making this decision saved his life.
While reading the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, I found the main character, Elie having an epiphany on page 115 of the book. Here, Elie finds himself finally free from the Nazis and the concentration camp, looking at himself in the mirror for the first time since the ghetto. Elie said, “From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me.” Although the narrator does not come out and directly state it, I believe it is at this moment that he truly understands what he has been subjected to and endured.
In, Night there are several instances where God-fearing men were turned into selfish monsters. The cruelty shown to the Jews forced them to become cold and heartless towards one another. Elie was no exception because he had to fight for his life, lie and ultimately leave his father for dead to escape the grueling wrath of the S.S officers upon himself. Every single day alive was a blessing for Elie and all the other Jews at the concentration camp. Death was a daily occurrence, and a primary reason why the Jews became insensitive.
The Holocaust will always be something remembered, whether it is 10 years from now or 50, it will always have an impact. Elie Wiesel, author of the novel Night and a Holocaust survivor; shares his story of the horrors that took place from the time he was ripped away from home to arriving and surviving the death camps. While in these camps, Elie was not only ripped from his family, but away from his innocence and perspective on life itself. Including his faith in God. Anyone who has survived the camps would know seeing death all around them is something that will stick with them, no matter what.
Over the ages, philosophers have debated the meaning of humanity in pursuit of a way to differentiate between humans and animals, but each time the question arises a conclusion is never fully realized. Different religious beliefs have contrasting views on the meaning humanity. Likewise, scientists also have a plethora of ideas about what defines a human being. In Night, Elie Wiesel explores the idea of humanity and what it means to be human. Over the course of the anecdote, Wiesel compares and contrasts the actions of humans and animals, showing the similarities and differences between people and the other creatures on Earth with the goal of identifying elements that define what it means to be human, namely the recognition mortality and the
In the book Night, Elie Wiesel describes his struggles as a Jew in a concentration camp using a depressing and serious tone, meant to reflect the horrific conditions the Jews were forced to face and the theme that adversity can cause a loss in faith. From the time Elie first arrived at the camp and heard everyone saying prayers, to when the young pipel was hung, and even when the Jews had to make the long, arduous, trek to the other camp, the reader could see his faith dwindling as he continued to question where his God was and why he wasn’t helping the Jews. Not only was a lack of faith evident in Elie himself, but the other Jews around him, even the priests, were having trouble believing in their God. Elie’s disheartened and somber tone
“To die and part is a less evil; but to part and live, there, there is the torment.” -George Lansdowne In Night, by Elie Wiesel, many prisoners were afflicted with both bodily and mental sufferings.
In a situation where your body is surviving on a thread, your stomach is inflated due to starvation and all the strength you had before is gone, you have to rely on mental and religious strength to carry you through your hardships. In Elie Wiesel’s “Night”, Elie talks about his personal experiences and hardships he faced during WWII and his life at Auschwitz as a young boy. Throughout the story Elie pushes through losing his mother and sister, lashings, seeing babies burned alive and the fear of death but also the hope for it in some situations. No amount of physical strength can help someone survive in the brutal place Auschwitz. Everywhere in the story Elie and other characters show that with mental and religious/spiritual strength, you can push through any hardship you have to face.
Victim of Isis are experiencing death, suffering, and with no hope in sight. But the horrific events was not happening in the middle east during present times, but during world war II in Germany. In the book Night, Elie Wiesel explains his experiences during the holocaust. Elie Wiesel wrote this book so he can inform people who weren’t there or didn’t know what happened to prevent this from happening again. Elie Wiesel assert this by show loss of faith, brutality and suffering Elie Wiesel, for a period of time of his life, experienced many things witnessing many deaths and malnourishment for years.
Many people around the world feel differently about the Holocaust. Out of all of the emotions I think people feel anger and sadness the most. This especially happens when we hear, read, or see about it. An example of this is when I read the book Night by Elie Wiesel, which is his story of surviving the Holocaust.
Forgiving For What? The book Night, written by Elie Wiesel, is a book about Elie’s experiences in the concentration camps such as Auschwitz and Buchenwald with his father during the Holocaust. Now as we know, they both have had to go through traumatic sightings such as people being sent to the concentration camps, people dying while walking in the cold, seeing a friend give up and soon to pass away, and babies and little kids being burned alive. This is too much to forgive.
The Bible states, “The Lord also will be a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble; And those who know your name will put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.…” [Psalm 9:9-10] Many believe one should turn to God in times of turmoil, but what should one do when death is everywhere and God does not anwser? This is the case in Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night. In this memoir Wiesel informs the reader of Eliezer’s, the protagonist, life in concentration camps during the Holocaust.
The human condition is a very malleable idea that is constantly changing due to the current state of mankind. In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, the concept of the human condition is displayed in the worst sense of the concept, during the Holocaust of WWII. During this time, multiple groups of people, most notably European Jews, were persecuted against and sent to horrible hard labor and killing centers such as Auschwitz. In this memoir, Wiesel uses complex figurative language such as similes and metaphors to display the theme that a person’s state as a human, both at a physical and emotional level, can be altered to extreme lengths, and even taken away from them, under the most extreme conditions.
Another example of survival and compassion is how Elie had given up everything in order to keep his father alive. Elie still used compassion and gave up his own needs for his father late in the story. By the end of the story everyone was starving and acting un-human like. For example, the men were “tearing and beating each other like animals” over a piece of bread. Instead of doing this Elie shares food with his father in order for him to survive.