Elie Wiesel Loss Of Faith In The Book Night

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Elie Wiesel titled the book Night because metaphorically speaking, the reader can connect subjects such as light and hope with day. Meanwhile, the opposite, darkness, despise, and hopelessness can be symbolized with night. Throughout his experiences within the concentration camps, Wiesel felt despair and evil around him and the other prisoners. He lost his faith in his religion and almost died on several occasions because of all the misery surrounding him. “‘For God’s sake, where is God?’ And from within me, I heard a voice answer: ‘Where He is? This is where - hanging here from this gallows…’” (page 65, Wiesel). Wiesel himself lost his faith in his religion. Wiesel thinks because God doesn't help in the most dire situations, he does not exist. Wiesel titled …show more content…

However, a turning point for him was when he “did not fast. First of all, to please my father who had forbidden me to do so. And then, there was no longer any reason for me to fast. I no longer accepted God’s silence. As I swallowed my ration of soup, I turned that act into a symbol of rebellion, of protest against Him.” (page 69, Wiesel) His experience of the endless night occurring in the camp caused him to lose his faith in religion, which, according to him, made him the accuser and God, the accused. To him, God was a lie because God would save him from this pit of darkness if he had justice, but he did not. The themes of the book include loss of faith which can be involved with the endless night that Wiesel experienced throughout the book. The title "Night" serves as a powerful symbol, encapsulating all the profound and negative aspects explored by the author throughout the book—horrors witnessed in captivity, the loss of hope, and the unimaginable atrocities perpetrated during the era of Nazi Germany. The haunting cover image of a dark night and the absence of hope in humanity sets the tone for what readers can expect within its