Abuse Of Power In Night By Elie Wiesel

Throughout history there have been several people who have rose to power and used that power to rule over people or land. These people usually enforce this power over the people below them, who do not have as much power as him. Some of these people end up abusing their power or struggling to keep it. When discussing this, the common question becomes noticeable; can a person have power and keep power while still adhering to their morals? In certain situations while a person has power, people can temporarily lose their commitment to their morals, but may also be able to keep that commitment. Whether or not they have good family or friend connections and what level of power they have can greatly influence their morals. This is expressed thoroughly

People tend to try to stay as close to those relationships and attempt to make the good relationships last, making friendship become part of their morals. This being said, when someone starts gain power, they are mostly able to keep their morals. In the book Night--a story about the firsthand experience of a boy who lives through The Holocaust written by Elie Wiesel--Elie and his father are in the notorious concentration camp Auschwitz. Elie’s father asks one of the guards where the bathroom is and, “he dealt my father such a clout that he fell to the ground, crawling back to his place on all fours”(48). Elie was so surprised and fear stricken that he did not even react to it, but he stated, “I thought only: I shall never forgive them for that”(48). When this event happened, Elie, though he has little of it, kept his power and his morals because of his close connection with his father. In the play Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare, the character Macbeth goes through so many things in a short period of time and he rises to power so fast and gains so much power that he is faced with many different things. When talking to the three witches that told the future of Macbeth and his close friend Banquo, the witches told Banquo that, “Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none. / So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!”(III.iii.70-71). The witches are actually saying that

In an excerpt from Elie Wiesel’s text, when Elie witnessed Idek, one of the guards, sleeping with a prisoner, he faced consequences. He was told by Idek, “You wait and see, kid… you’ll soon find out what leaving your work’s going to cost you… you’re going to pay for this pretty soon”(64). He later in the story whips Elie in the middle of his block, in front of everybody. Idek, being a higher guard, has plenty of power and is pretty high up in the ranks, so he is able to pretty much do anything to the prisoners at the concentration camp. Idek is able to do all of this and is not able to keep his good moral values. In Macbeth, while contemplating whether or not he should kill Duncan, Macbeth says. “I have no spur / To prick the sides of my intent, but only / Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself / And falls on the other”(i.vii.25-28). Macbeth is saying that he has ambition to kill Duncan, but there is no good reason to except for him to gain power. At this point, Macbeth has little power, only ruling his own homeland, so when he does kill Duncan later in the story, he is able to keep his morals intact. He is doing something that, in his mind, he needs to do. In The Prince, Machiavelli repetitively states the different ways to rise to power. He explains thoroughly that when one has power,