Analyze The Contents Of The Book Night By Douglas Cowan

To culminate the semesters worth of thoughts and readings of the relationship between religion and literature I decided to analyze the contents of the book Night by Elie Wiesel. This book is an account of Elie’s life in Nazi Germany. It addressed his inner most thoughts as a young man who’s life suddenly changes during the reign of Adolf Hitler. In the following paragraphs I have explored a few religious aspects of Night in relation to two of the required readings and a discussion post assigned to this class.

The book, Sacred Terror by Douglas Cowan explains the relationship found between horror films and religion. Although Night is not a piece of fiction or a film it does retain some of the aspects Cowan has found. Chapter 5 of Sacred Terror

Cowan states that individuals utilize religion predominantly to “negotiate fear”. When Elie Wiesel arrives at Auschwitz he is separated from his family. A selection takes place inside the concentration camp as the notorious Dr. Mengele decides the fate of Elie and his father. Prisoners were told to get into one of two lines left or right. One meant work the other was a painful death in the creamatorium. With indifference he pointed his baton to the left. In Elie direction he witness a truck unload babies into the flames and beside it lied a large pit for adults. His father whispers some words of prayers to which Elie grows angry. He doesn’t understand why God would allow such atrocities towards another human being exist. Coming closer to the pit with each passing second Elie reluctantly whispers, “Yisgadal, veyiskadash, shmey raba … May his name be exalted and sanctified …". Elie is consciously aware that in front of him lies a painful death. Although the reader is informed that Elie is doubting and questioning his God and faith, the sight of death is enough to search for religion for comfort. The fear in his heart was strong. Growing up as a religious child Elie drew upon his faith to calm

From this passage an individual can deduce that although God may not always be present his action are present in bring out the truth and serving justice when the need arrives. Elie Wiesel approaches God with a different perspective after witnessing the injustices in the concentration camps. He professes that he still believes in the existence of the Almighty but, is uncertain of God’s absolute justice (Wiesel, 45). Just like Holmes, Elie does not deny the reality of God however, his view of God’s persona starts to diverge. Unlike Holmes, associating God with justice seems incomprehensible to Elie when attending the unrighteous death of family, friends, and neighbors because racial ideology targeted a certain group of people as the scapegoat to their