Control In Night By Elie Wiesel

How Elie Weisel’s Night Demonstrates What it Means to Have Control Over Life and Death

The cycle of life and death is long contemplated and feared. The extremes of death are exploited in the tragedy of the Holocaust. During the genocide people were able to grieve their own death as well as realize what it means to live a full life. First there is denial of the situation at hand, then a shift of humanity and the definition of the word,next, some are lucky to find peace in their own death. Night by Elie Wiesel illustrates how a person is able to have control over their own death and realize their completion of life.

Throughout Night Weisell shows the process of the victims of the Holocaust going through denial of their own fate and trying

The stakes that the Jews were facing are shown through this quote. Denial of the fate described is more than understandable, but this fate was one in which the Nazi’s were in control, robbing the victims of their lives and ability to complete the cycle of life in peace. To be killed twice meant is both literal and metaphoric, referring to a death of their faith, and futures. When the Jews recited the Kaddish for themselves it was a show of control, knowing there would be no one to do it for them, enhanced when it is noted that thevictims were denied in a cemetery. When the Jews first walked into the camp they felt the hatred all around them; “The march toward the chimneys looming in the distance under an indifferent sky (Weisell xiii)”. The chimneys were the only thing Weisell saw and God, nor the world, seemed to care. As Weisell and the characters in the book lose their faith, watching what God lets happen, they understand that it is not only God who has control over their life and death. Being independent from God means a dependency of yourself. Still, those who fought death tooth and nail seemed to suffer the most traumatic fates, full of suffering. Zalman, a young

He was fighting death and his ability to pass peacefully was taken from him. Zalman’s meaning of life was merely survival,which is no life at all. An example of a young man's life being taken from him in such a way arises sympathy from the reader because as they are able to grieve a loss that he cannot. The inability to complete his life, makes his death a murder. The Nazi’s robbed people of their ability to die on their own terms and tell the story of their lives after they passed

The death of the victims of the Holocaust was not instantaneous, instead a gradual thought out process by the Nazi’s meant to dehumanize their prisoners . Weisell explains what life was like in a concentration camp; “Hunger- thirst- fear- transport- selection- fire- chimney: these words all have intrinsic meaning, but in those times they meant something else (Weisellix).” The Jews were treated not as humans because they were not viewed as such in the eyes of the Nazi’s. This way of life was not life, but torture. Weisell shows how people were able to pass peacefully because they felt they were already dead and that this life was not their own. As a young teenager growing up in a concentration camp