Night, By Elie Wiesel: Character Analysis

For every individual, it is difficult to give up two than one. In the novel Night, by Elie Wiesel, Elie magnanimously inputs his blood and sweat by sacrificing his strength and rations for the survival of his father. He holds unconditional hopes of believing that he will be able to make not only himself survive through the brutal camps under German control, but also his father through his efforts. Through this, Elie uses the relationship with his father to suggest that individuals should be independent for better survival because it is more efficient to create a single, strong individual rather than two weak ones.

Elie may have continuously helped his father in lengthening his endurance, but failed to straighten his father’s will. He was able to continuously replenish his weak, old father little by little by making sacrifices such as by giving up his “ration of bread and soup” (110) due to his health and youth. But one aspect that he did not notice was that “every man for himself and . . . each of us lives and dies alone” (110). Elie does not discard his hopes of killing two birds with one stone, until at the end of the novel, when the doctor points out

Near the beginning of the novel, Elie wanted to be in the same camp with his father more than anything else. The work given to both his father and himself was bearable, but as time passed by, “. . . his father was getting weaker” (107). The weaker Elie’s father got, the more sacrifices Elie made. After realizing the many treatments Elie was giving his father compared to himself, each additional sacrifice made Elie feel as if his “. . . heart was heavy” (107) and as if he “. . . was doing it grudgingly” (107). The initial feelings of constant benevolence gradually vanished. As much as his father was selfish enough to take his rations, he should have been selfish enough to keep his provisions for