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Elie Wiesel Loss Of Faith In Night

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“Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into light” (Keller). During dark times faith is essential to not give up. Many Jewish prisoners in the holocaust used faith to persevere hope in the distressing death camps. But for many, a loss of faith was prevalent during these dehumanizing experiences. One prisoner that underwent this loss of faith was Elie Wiesel and he wrote a memoir titled, Night, to express this unforgettable time in his life. In the book, the author describes life in the concentration camp and his journey of how these traumatic experiences changed him. He went through many things which include him questioning his faith. Elie's relationship with God has changed throughout Night, demonstrating Elie Wiesel …show more content…

For instance, as Wiesel spectates a young boy’s hanging and watches him slowly lose his life it becomes his breaking point. He only starts to doubt God's existence when he is asked this heretical question, “For God's sake, where is god?" and within me, I heard a voice answer: Where is he? This is where- hanging here from this gallows” (Wiesel 65). The killing of the Jews symbolizes the killing of Elie’s God which identifies the lowest point of his faith in the novel. Finally, Wiesel is not only letting go of his God but accepting he is losing a huge part of himself. He emphasizes where his relationship with God is at when he states, “I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, without man. I was nothing but ashes now, but I felt myself to be stronger than this almighty to whom my life had been bound to for so long. In the middle of these men assembled for prayer, I felt like an observer, a stranger” (Wiesel 68). Eliezer is trying to express that he spent nearly all his life worshiping God just to not only feel abandoned but leaving him with a great void after losing a huge part of himself. Because of Wiesel’s dehumanizing experiences in the camp his perspective shifts and he has renounced his faith in

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548 Words | 3 Pages

What was there to thank Him for?” (33). This quote explicitly states how, for the first time, Wiesel feels differently about his God. He even describes God as ‘terrible’. This fracture in his faith is a result of his fear that God will continue to ignore their pleas for help.

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Night Elie's Journey Analysis

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The heart wrenching and powerful memoir “Night” by Elie Wiesel depicts Elie’s struggle through the holocaust. It shows the challenges and struggles Elie and people like him faced during this mournful time, the dehumanization; being forced out of their homes, their towns and sent to nazi concentration camps, being stripped of their belongings and valuables, being forced to endure and witness the horrific events during one of history’s most ghastly tales. In “Night” Elie does not only endure a physical journey but also a spiritual journey as well, this makes him question his determination, faith and strength. This spiritual journey is a journey of self discovery and is shown through Elie’s struggle with himself and his beliefs, his father

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Elie Wiesel's Transformation In Night

487 Words | 2 Pages

Wiesel changes vastly throughout the book, whether it is his faith in God, his faith in living, or even the way his mind works. In the beginning of his memoir, Wiesel appeared to be faithful to God and the Jewish religion, but during his time in concentration camps, his faith in God wavered tremendously. Before his life was corrupted, he would praise God even when he was being transferred to Auschwitz, but after living in concentration camps, he began to feel rebellious against his own religion. In the book, Elie

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Effects Of Faith In Night By Elie Wiesel

1146 Words | 5 Pages

Elie, once so faithful, is one of the first to lose faith in God due to the horrific sights he sees. After witnessing the bodies of Jewish children being burned, Wiesel writes, “Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever” (34). He quite understandably has begun to doubt that his God is with him following the sight of the supposedly chosen people’s bodies being unceremoniously burned. Elie, though, was perhaps not a member of the masses with this belief; in fact, some men were able to hold on to their beliefs despite these horrendous sights. Also near the middle of the book, Wiesel reflects on the faith of other Jews in the face of these events, saying that “some of the men spoke of God: His mysterious ways, the sins of the Jewish people, and the redemption to come.

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1331 Words | 6 Pages

Belief and Faith is a “double-edged sword” to the jews, it cuts both ways. It keeps them alive, and at the same time makes them oblivious, and leads to their suffering. Over time, Elie’s belief in god, diminishes and eventually he questions God’s existence extensively and at point, Elie is infuriated that even though they are being tormented and enslaved, the Jews will still pray to god, and thank him, “If god did exist, why would he let u go through all the pain and suffering (33). This is a major point in the ongoing theme of faith and belief, because for once he is infuriated with the thought of religion in a time of suffering. Throughout the book, with the nazis ultimate goal is to break the jews and make dehumanize them and if anything, their goal is take and diminish their belief.

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456 Words | 2 Pages

I remember when I was little, I would sometimes start crying because people made fun of me for what I believed in (and I was at a Catholic school for heaven’s sake!), but that is nothing compared to what Elie went through during his time in the “Death Factory”, Camp Auschwitz. In the famous memoir by Elie Wiesel, Night, Elie speaks of his physically and emotionally crushing experience in the most famous concentration camp, Auschwitz. At the beginning of the memoir Night, Elie was deeply religious and God was part of his daily life, but at the end of the memoir, he had lost most of his faith in God because he was destroyed on the inside from the Nazis. Throughout the memoir, Night, Elie is slowly losing his faith in God in whom he loved and

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Eliezer started out as a young man, strong and full of faith. Even though he was going through the worst he stayed strong. In the book he says, “During the day I studied the Talmud, and at night I ran to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple,” (pg.1). This shows that he was in love with religion, and he had strong faith. Towards the end of the

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In conclusion, in the memoir Night, Elie Wiesel utilizes the suffering and adversity of Jews during the Holocaust in order to present how when faith in God is lost, a person can continue to progress in life or not, but they will only be able to if they have hope and faith in themselves. The book illustrates that without God, one must still be able to live a satiated life and be able to procure self-motivation. In the lives of Jews during the Holocaust, as well as people today, no matter what religion one has faith in, when faith in that is lost due to hardships, one must be able to find hope in other places. This is not to say that following a religion is useless, but instead to relay the message that in addition to faith in something else,

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But eliezer has been taught that god is the only way that god is always watching you, that god is what created the very existence of this world that without god there would be nothing,because of this he has to believe what they teach the him from a small age because if not god will know, god will only bring pureness to those who believe in him .However his belief in this purity of god tends to get shaken by the evilness of the holocaust,the reader must understand that eliezer is just a young little boy he is innocent he does not understand,by watching what they do in these concentration camps he has to witness cruelty and pain but how in the world could this reflect god's divinity?Even so after the questioning and all that eliezer still believes in god because he comes to realize that in some of his experiences miracles have saved him, he asks a man named moshe “why do you pray?” and the man replies “I

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Loss Of Faith In Night By Elie Wiesel

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The intense story Night, written by Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel, is an autobiography about a young Jewish boy’s survival of the Holocaust. Throughout this story, the main character, Elie, changes in many ways, but one of the most obvious would be his faith. At the beginning of the book, Elie is very strong in his faith and wants to spend his life studying and worshiping his God, but after spending time in the concentration camps, witnessing mass murder, and being on the brink of death, he begins to lose faith. Elie, like many of his fellow prisoners after experiencing these hardships, asks, “Where is merciful God, where is He?” (64).

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892 Words | 4 Pages

Concentration Camps broke the will of many Jewish prisoners’ faith. They believed that their god had forsaken them, or that he never existed to allow such atrocities to be committed against his people. In Night, a memoir by Elie Wiesel, Elie’s faith deteriorates rapidly in the concentration camps. Elie’s faith changed in that as time went on and hope waned, he first accused God of his crimes against his people, holding theocratic debates within himself. By the end of the Novel, he no longer seemed to belief in God.

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After such a long time without help, these people will start to question their faith and eventually, they will rebel against it. In the memoir, Night by Elie Wiesel, a survivor of The Holocaust, Elie shows that faith is often lost in times of testing or trial. One example of Elie losing his faith is when he was questioning his belief in God. "I suffer hell in my soul and my flesh. I also have eyes and I see what is being done here.

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Elie Wiesel suspects that God is letting him go through such a situation. Wiesel begins losing faith in God. For example, Wiesel stated,”What are you, my God? I thought angrily. How do you compare to this stricken mass gathered to affirm to you their faith, their anger, their defiance?....

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