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Elie's Belief In God Analysis

451 Words2 Pages

Milos Kulina

Elie’s faith towards God changes a lot as the story goes on. In the beginning of the work, his faith in God is complete. In chapter one when asked why he prays to God, he says, “Why did I pray?... Why did I live? Why did I breathe?” His belief in God is great, and he cannot imagine living without faith in his divine power. But his faith is challenged by what he has to go through during the Holocaust.

During the first night in the camp and during the hanging of the young pipel, Elie does battle with his faith. The horrific scene of everyone seeing the pipel being hanged, and him being too little he didn’t have enough weight for his neck just to snap when dropped. Therefore he just hanged there for half an hour. Elie wondered, if God was so good and merciful then why would he allow this to happen? The …show more content…

If God was so merciful and good why would he let this happen? If God was always there and a part of their everyday life why would he allow this to happen? Why would he let the children witness their father and mother being killed right in front of their very eyes, or allow the mother’s to witness their newborn child getting thrown into a fire. All of these things made Ellie question his faith. Before all of this started when Ellie was asked why he prayed he answered, ““Why did I pray?... Why did I live? Why did I breathe?” . But then later on he ceased to pray. On page 45 he says,” I was ceased to pray. I concurred with a job. I was not denying his existence, but I doubted his absolute justice.” Elie is not denying the fact that God doesn’t exist, but little by little he’s getting separated farther from him.

In conclusion Elie’s faith towards God does shift around throughout the story. In the beginning he would always pray and believe God was good. As the story goes on and he faces many hardships his beliefs get shaken up, but in the end he emerges with his faith

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As for me, I had ceased to pray... I was not denying His existence, but I doubted His absolute justice” (45). It is apparent here that the effect of the Holocaust on the Jewish people’s faith was delayed on some level. Elie refuses to pray to the God that apparently abandoned him. This is personified when he says he doubts that God has absolute justice.

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