Matthew Saunders Sunny Hill English 10 16 February 2023 From The Depths of The Mirror At the beginning of the autobiographical Night, Elie Wiesel is a naturally curious boy who yearns to learn more about his religion and the world. In May of 1944, he and his family were sent to Auschwitz due to them being Jewish. They then endured a torturous train ride with no air to breathe, let alone food or water. After arriving, his family was separated in half; his mother and sister were immediately sent to the gas chambers, never to be seen again. In Buna, Elie then bears witness to a mere thirteen-year-old being hanged. After surviving two death camps and three agonizing train rides, his father falls ill. He’s taken to be killed just after he and Elie …show more content…
The one person that has stuck with Elie throughout the entirety of the Hell which was the death camps was his father. Elie got through each day knowing that he not only was fighting for his own life, but his father’s as well, it gave him purpose. When Elie and his father completed their final train ride, they had arrived in Buchenwald. By this point, Elie’s father has not only fallen ill but lost the will to live. When getting off the train he collapsed into the snow while moaning, “I can’t anymore… it’s over… I shall die right here” (Wiesel 105). Elie begins to think about what would happen if his father died. He realizes that if he no longer had to look after his father he could focus more on his own survival. Afterward he instantly, “felt ashamed, ashamed of myself forever” (Wiesel 106). In the following days, his father's health deteriorated further. Elie describes his state by using soul-crushing imagery, comparing him to a, “wounded animal” (Wiesel 106). His lips were, “pale, dry, and shivering” (Wiesel 106). He was eventually taken to be incinerated while Elie was sleeping. Elie, aware of what happened did not weep. Initially, he felt as if a weight had been lifted off him, “Free at last!” (Wiesel 112). In the coming weeks, the true weight of the situation landed on Elie. In Night, Elie goes as far as to not describe his life during the period after his father's death as, “It no longer mattered anymore” (Wiesel 113). He goes on to say, “Since my father’s death, nothing mattered during that period” (Wiesel 113). While Elie’s father was a responsibility Elie did not wish to bear during the camps, he soon came to find out that without him his life lacked meaning. Without his father, he had lost the one thing he had left that brought him purpose. He lost his dignity, his