Argumentative Essay On Night By Elie Wiesel

The people we consider our family are the people we are closest to, and feel like we can’t live without. World War II caused families to become divided, but some were able to stay together. Night, a memoir written by Elie Wiesel, describes the story of Wiesel and his father throughout the Holocaust. Although Wiesel was separated from his sisters and mother, he and his father managed to stay together and aid each other in times of need. Without his father, Wiesel would have never survived the holocaust, and his father would never have lived as long as he did without Wiesel. In the camps, everybody felt the same longing to be free, a pain that echoed throughout the walls of the camps. In a way, it showed that all the Jews were connected like

If one feels like they can’t go on any longer, the others are there to help you continue. Once Wiesel and his father had been transported to their new camp, they stayed with each other, making sure none of them lost the drive to continue. If one needed something, the other would try their best to provide it. When Wiesel’s father became sick with dysentery, instead of trying to help himself, Wiesel tried and tried, getting everything his father asked for to try and make sure he survived. Before the Holocaust began, Wiesel and his father were not very close. “My father was a cultured man, rather unsentimental. He rarely displayed his feelings, not even with his family, and was more involved with the welfare of others than with that of his own kin.” (pg. 4) Although this quote shows a weak bond between Wiesel and his father, it also shows how due to the war, they were brought much closer by working to keep each other alive. After marching for miles in the dead of night, Wiesel collapsed in the snow, not wanting to go any farther. His father, knowing Wiesel could die, shook him awake. “‘Not here… Get up… A little farther down. There is a shed over there… Come…’” (pg. 88) Wiesel's father knew that they could not give up now when they were so close to a possible way out. If Wiesel were to not stay with his father or vice versa, they would have had a much harder time in the camps and most likely die showing

They show that a weak familial tie can lead to suffering for the whole family. Greed and selfishness lead to familial ties being broken. A pure instinct for survival convinces people that the best option is to abandon their family and try to survive on their own with less of a burden. Rabbi Eliahu and his son were both in the camps for three years, and together they suffered the pain and persecution all the others experienced. Wiesel and his father were taking a rest in the snow when the Rabbi approached them to ask, “‘Perhaps someone has seen my son?’”(pg. 90) The Rabbi’s son had deserted him after three years thinking that his father was not going to make it. “He had seen him. And he had continued to run in front, letting the distance between them become greater.”(pg. 91) If the Rabbi’s son had waited for his father, and pushed him to continue running, then they would have both been there together which would show the strength of family ties, but instead, by deserting his father, the only thing shown is a traitor, born out of the horrible conditions of the Holocaust. An additional father-son relationship was found while Elie and his father were on the train to Buchenwald. Meir and his father are both on the train starving when a piece of bread is thrown into the wagon. “‘Meir, my little Meir! Don’t you recognize me… You’re killing your father…I have bread…for you too…’”(pg. 101) Meir ended up killing his own