Every day many of us are faced with the question, “Should I step in and help?”. Some of us immediately think yes and jump in to help, while others believe it is better to keep walking. The bystander effect happens when a person does not stop and help because they think someone else will. In these situations, some people stand up and respond to the crisis, because they are not worried about what will happen to them, but what will happen to the person in crisis instead. In the novel Night and the poem “The Hangman”, the bystander effect took place because people were afraid to bring attention to themselves. In the film The Hunger Games, however, Katniss Everdeen took a stand because she was not afraid of what would happen to her but what would happen to her sister and others in trouble instead. This feeling of fear for yourself rather than others is what separates the bystanders from the morally courageous people of the world.
In the novel Night, most of the prisoners during the Holocaust became bystanders because of the fear for themselves getting killed. When Elie’s father gets hit for the first time, Elie said, “ My father had just been struck, in front of me, and I had not even blinked. I had watched and kept silent. Only yesterday, I would have dug my nails into this criminal’s flesh” (Wiesel 39). During the short duration of camp, Elie became a bystander and would not even stand up for his own father getting struck. However, when Elie and his father arrive in Birkenau,