Yoda once said that “Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering”. This shows that in the end, fear will lead to suffering because it has the power to do so. The novel Night by Elie Wiesel is a memoir about Elie’s experience of the holocaust. This novel has many examples of hope and fear. However, it constantly shows many examples where fear becomes stronger and dominates more compared to hope. Although hope is very powerful, fear is more powerful than hope because it cripples a person’s mindset and creates terrible situations where hope is impossible to have. Fear is so powerful that it can crush a person’s whole mindset. For example, Elie starts to lose hope in his religion: “Where …show more content…
For example, Elie describes how horrible the train ride was by claiming, “Crammed into cattle trains by Hungarian police, they wept bitterly. We stood on the platform and wept too. the train disappeared on the horizon; it left nothing behind but it's thick, dirty smoke” (Wiesel 3). This quote shows how hard it is to have hope especially when the stench of the train was clear to everyone that they were headed for a terrible fate. It proves how hard it is to hold on to hope when there's almost no escape. Another example is when Elie was reciting his horrible experience he will never forget about: "Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live” (Wiesel 32). In this quote, Elie describes his experience at the concentration camp and how it has destroyed his faith. He is haunted with the memory of the flames that consumed his faith. All the fear and despair he went through left him feeling hopeless and without meaning. Fear creates many situations where it is hard to have hope and stay positive and that is shown when the prisoners are powerless to change their fate which creates a sense of hopelessness and despair that the prisoners have to overcome which makes it almost impossible to have
For example when Elie says “Meir, my little Meir! Don’t you recognize me… You’re killing your father…I have bread…for you too…for you too…” He collapsed….. The old man mumbled something, groaned, and died.” This shows how just for a piece of bread someone's son is willing to beat up his father for it and not care that it’s his father he is hurting.
Jadon Zhao Hansen English 10 15 January 2023 Analysis of How Atrocities Turn Good People Into Monsters in “Night” Atrocities can turn even the most innocent of people into monsters. This is a theme that is explored in Elie Wiesel’s novel Night. Through the experiences of the protagonist, Elie, we can see how the horrors of the Holocaust can transform a person from a kind and compassionate individual to a hardened and cruel one. One example of this theme is when Elie says he had become a different person and that his “soul had been invaded–and devoured–by a black flame” (Wiesel, Night, 37).
For instance Elie describes this scene as the treacherous journey from Buna to Buchenwald really put a lot of strain on his father's body, mind and spirit. Elie feels tremendous guilt for wishing for his father's death so he can take care of himself. He is ashamed of himself for thinking about his father as a burden. Elie is able to refocus during these times of frustration, and he continues to care for his father until his last days, “I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. But I was out of tears.
Hope is an important part of daily life for many people. Though in the holocaust many people were in terrible situations, some still managed to have hope. In Elie Wiesel’s novel, Night, Elie tells his tale of the time he spent in a large number of concentration camps and his novel contains many instances of hope. Hope is the most prominent theme amongst the other themes included in this novel. The theme of hope is used frequently throughout the book.
Bryce Bullock R. Gibson ENG IIB 8 March 2023 Night: A Darker Meaning Than The Midnight Sky Night is a powerful and unforgettable memoir written by Elie Wiesel about his experiences as a Jewish teenager during the Holocaust. The book’s title evokes a sense of darkness and fear that permeates the pages, and it is fitting because it reflects the physical and mental suffering that Wiesel and other Jews endured during their time in concentration camps. The title also has symbolic significance, representing the loss and death that the protagonists experience as they struggle to retain their faith and humanity. The title Night is layered with meaning, and it is a suitable choice for the book because it reflects the darkness and despair that characterizes the Holocaust.
Fear serves as an illustration of how humanity and hope were lost in the death camps. This is due to the fact that captives were made to see the burning of their fellow inmates and the deterioration of their own bodies and spirits via hard labor and starvation, which resulted in a severe sense of terror and despair. “How was it possible that men, women, and children were being burned and that the world kept quiet” (Wiesel 32). This quotation explains the immense trauma Elie went through. Then Elie utters, “All this could not be real” (Wiesel 32).
In an example once again involving Elie’s father, Elie Wiesel starts to think of abandoning his father, due to the relief that would come from it. Once again, he thinks about this only because he wants to feel the relief of having less responsibilities without his father. Nevertheless, he scolds himself for such thoughts, as they are inhumane, abnormal, and defines the destruction of his father. Elie would never originally think of such a thought. Even so, the wringed out child thinks of this relief because the extreme conditions he lives in.
The book Night is mostly about Eliezer, a young Orthodox Jewish teenager sent to Auschwitz concentration camp where he struggles to maintain faith and the inhumane treatment experienced by him and other prisoners. Eliezer’s father dies, but Eliezer survives and is left traumatized. In this essay, I will explain what fear is, how it's demonstrated in the book Night, and why fear is more powerful than hope. First of all, the book demonstrates what fear looks like. Fear can be powerful, as shown on page 111 of Night, “I didn’t move.
The delusion that one day the Jewish people would know peace. As noted in the novel Night, Elie Wiesel the narrator describes the Holocaust. " Hunger-thirst-fear-transportation-selection-fire-chimney: these words all have intrinsic meaning, but in those times, they meant something else" (Wiesel ix). The novel Night gives the perspective of the Holocaust through a young man 's eyes.
Imagine believing so strongly in something and then being let down, or thinking that you were wrong to believe. In Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie felt as though he had lost his religion and beliefs. “I believed profoundly. During the day I studied the Talmud, and at night I ran to the synagogue to weep of the destruction of the Temple,” (Wiesel, 14). This quote shows how strongly he believed before experiencing the hardships of the Holocaust
Loss damages humans emotionally and sometimes spiritually but it is loss that makes us grow as members of a society. The need to prevent others from suffering as well overwhelms us and we become advocated against whatever has hurt us so much. In Elie Wiesel’s autobiographical novel Night, he suffers along with his family through the Holocaust. He watches people suffer and wither away, including his father. During his time of just under a year in concentration camps, Wiesel grew into a very mature and emotionally strong person.
For example, while the prisoners were forcibly walking from one camp to another in frigid temperatures, Wiesel wrote, “Chilled to the bone, our throats parched, famished, out of breath, we pressed on” (Wiesel 87). Within this passage, the author’s purpose is to inform the reader of the fatalistic atmosphere. Furthermore, Elie’s desiderium juxtaposed with the poem “Fire and Ice” reveals that if humanity
Night is a powerful, first person account of the tragic horrors of the Holocaust written and endured by Elie Wiesel. In this dark literary piece, Wiesel's first hand tale of the atrocities and horrors endured in World War II concentration camps will leave an unforgettable, dark, macabre impression amongst readers that cannot be done with a simple listing of statistics. This tale of human perserverance and the dark side of human nature will cause readers to question their own humanity. Also, it will paint a vivid picture of the vile deeds that mankind is capable of expressing. Reading this book will leave a long lasting impression that is definitely not something that will be soon forgotten.
(Wiesel 82). Elie is heartbroken when this event occur because throughout the whole story Elie’s role model was his father and to see him get beaten made him lose hope. During their times in the camp the suffering laid upon on both Elie and his father made them give up on themselves and feel like they didn’t have a chance to make it out or survive. This was shown once again in depth when Elie said to himself, “Were there still miracles on this earth?” (Wiesel 76).
Elie is scared when he says, “My father just received several blows across the face for asking where the restroom was”(39). Once Schlomo (Elie’s Father) received several blows across the face, he overcame that obstacle by working hard the next few hours until bedtime came. He was scarred both mentally and physically by this occurrence. He did not let this roadblock, or obstacle, stop him. It’s a good example when Elie says, “It’s over, God is no longer with us, but the march continued to go on”(76).