Are Humans Inherently Good And Evil In Night By Elie Wiesel

Throughout history, humans have done many questionable things toward one another for one reason or another ranging from wealth to necessity. Perspective is extremely important when it comes to determining if something is evil or not as its effects on others can vary as can the drawbacks and/or benefits to the initiator. During the book, Night, this divide in perspective can be shown between the Jewish group, SS, and criminals as the reader is subjected to the horrors of the Holocaust through the eyes of Eliezer Wiesel and faced with the question of whether humans are inherently good or evil. The book is not the only place where this idea is explored, as in many religions this question is asked and later answered along with studies done by

One's circumstance is intriguing as there is no guideline to a circumstance making it infinitely diverse, so how does this help determine whether or not humans are inherently good? Early on in the book, Eliezer is put in front of a criminal who has been given power within the concentration camps, a person who has done something that was considered evil, and yet with his interaction with Eliezer, he helps the fifteen-year-old by claiming, “No. You’re eighteen” which causes the SS to see him as old enough to be useful, ultimately allowing for his survival (Wiesel 30). So was the criminal evil or did he just commit an evil act? In the Bible, it helps answer this question as it is told that, “God created mankind in his image” meaning that humans were made perfect and without sin until Genesis 3:6 (Genesis 1:27). Here,

As humans, they start out as babies who have little to no knowledge of the world around them and as such rely heavily on their parents to teach them. This is very important as this correlates to also how those around the baby look including race and as human history has demonstrated, racism is bad, even evil depending on the effects of those subjected to it. In the Bobo doll experiment conducted by psychologist Albert Bandura where he tested what an African-American child preferred based on race when given a set of characteristics with the white doll given positive traits as opposed to the dolls of color which were given negative traits, it was found that the children preferred the white doll (Mcleod 2023). This is important as on one hand it could be seen as though the child is prejudiced, but on the other hand, the children were between three and seven years old and have little to no morals that they follow or understand. Is it fair to say that children are bad because of their experience with their parents and society when it is natural to learn from those with more experience? No, it is not fair, the children simply made a choice because of their environment. Returning to the book a little while after Eliezer enters the concentration camp, it is told how his father is being whipped as Eliezer just sat there scared. When Eliezer’s father noticed this, he told his son,