Fear Of Death In Elie Wiesel's Night

Fear of death changes how individuals think and makes people perform actions they would not normally do. They do not consider how these uncommon actions will affect themselves and others. Elie Wiesel, in the book Night, experiences this firsthand. After witnessing multiple people killed during the Holocaust, Elie’s primary goal is to keep himself and his father alive, no matter the cost. Just as death impacted Elie, it also impacted Mitch Albom in his book Tuesdays with Morrie. Both Tuesdays with Morrie and Night portray death as something to be feared, yet it changes the characters' lives. In the books Night and Tuesdays with Morrie, fear of death makes the characters act and think a certain way revealing that death changes how they perceive

While Elie and his father are on their way to Berknal, Elie overhears the Hungarian lieutenant declaring “There are eighty of you in this wagon, if anyone is missing you’ll all be shot like dogs” (Wiesel 22). Elie and the other Jewish people are so afraid of being shot that they do not even think about escaping the wagon. Their fear of death holds the Jewish people and their lives captive, forcing them to do what they are told no matter the moral consequences, almost like being in a constant delusion. Another example of the Jewish people being controlled by their fear of death is when Elie watched a ma being hung for carrying weapons. While watching this man being hung, Elie remembers this boy that was hung not too long ago, Elie hears a man behind him ask “Where is God now…Here He is-He is hanging here on this gallows”(Wiesel 62). Elie also says “That night, the soup tasted of corpses”(Wiesel 62). Elie says the soup tasted like corpses because he knows that if he does anything wrong or something that the guards disapprove of, it could be him being hung while the whole camp watches. All of the people in the concentration camps- Jewish or not- are being forced to do work that they would never do or are forced to see death all because they do not want to

In Tuesdays with Morrie, death is talked about as an additional part of life. Even only a few chapters into the book, Mitch seems somewhat afraid of Morrie dying, so he starts to record their talks so he can go back and pick up on things that he didn't notice the first time. Mitch realizes the truth- that Morrie was dying, and while realizing this he says “I was losing Morrie…And I suppose tapes, like photographs and videos, are a desperate attempt to steal something from death’s suitcase”, (Albom 63). Mitch knows that he is scared of death taking Morrie, so scared that he dies almost anything to remember him. He knows that he is not ready to say goodbye. He knows that he is in a queue of people that Morrie has changed but it feels like his death is impacting him the most. If Morrie was not dying, Mitch would have never come to visit him, let alone record their talks. One more way that Morrie's death affected Mitch is when he dies. After Morrie's funeral, Mitch called his brother and said “You’re my only brother. I don’t want to lose you. I love you.” (Albom 191). All fourteen Tuesdays with Morrie made Mitch understand the importance of the loved ones in his life. Mitches fear of death in his family has led him to become a more loving person, in fear of losing what he