Throughout Night, Elie Wiesel demonstrates the indifference and lack of empathy created by extreme conditions. Wiesel develops this theme as early as in chapter two when Elie is packed into the back of a cattle car and is being transported to Auschwitz. With everyone's nerves at their breaking point, when Mrs. Schächter began having a mental breakdown, they resorted to violence, and “when they actually struck her, people shouted their approval”(26). The stress and distress caused by being trapped in the cattle car brought a tight knit, religious community to beating an older woman. This loss of empathy even impacts familial bonds, this is illustrated vividly during the death march, Rabbi Elihau’s son abandoned him.
In the book Night, we the readers witness the hardships and struggles in Elie’s life during the traumatic holocaust. The events that take place in this story are unbearable and are thought to be demented in modern times. In the beginning Elie is shown as a normal teenage Jewish boy, but the events are so drastic that we the readers forget how he was like in the beginning. Changes were made to Elie during the book, whether they were minor or major. The changes generated from himself, the journey, and other people.
Human nature is filled with both cruelty and compassion. Depends on one’s distinct characteristics, people might have various reactions to a subject, even under the same circumstance. The short story “Night” presents this separation in describing a polish block leader and a gypsy. At the concentration camp, minority group like Jews are dehumanized. Elie’s father, who politely asks for the location of toilet, expects to receive a proper answer, only get a slap in the
In Elie Wiesel’s Night, dehumanization is one of the key themes. Experiencing dehumanization is by far a horrible way to live. Being hit and treated like an animal is what Elie Wiesel, his father and the other Jews experienced. Even though this happened some time ago, it got me thinking how often does this happen today? Many people can still experience this, women especially.
Elie views many terrible actions performed by the Nazis. For example, “Yes, I did see this, with my own eyes… children thrown into flames.” (Wiesel 32). He saw cruel actions that caused him to question his faith. Despite all of this Elie persevered to let people know what they were unaware of.
This memoir is a depiction of Eli’s life as a young boy who survived the Holocaust throughout the 40’s. Elie educates and engages his readers by providing very detailed images of the actual events throughout the book. His use of personifications such as, “My throat was dry and the words were choking me, paralyzing my lips” (Wiesel 15), or “Death enveloped me, it suffocated me” (Wiesel 86). helps to keep the reader engaged. From page 15, Elie made sure to overemphasize the situation by using descriptive words.
Lack of Humanity, Loss of Identity In Elie Wiesel’s “Night”, Elie begins the novel living a normal life in the small town of Sighet in Transylvania. He lives with a family of six, with his mother, father, and three sisters. The story picks up quickly after the Nazis move in, first taking away the town’s rights to own any gold, jewelry, or any valuables, then no longer have the right to restaurants, cafes, synagogues, or to even travel by rail. Soon the town of Sighet then came the ghettos. It was prohibited from leaving their homes after six o 'clock in the evening.
The severely cruel conditions of concentration camps had a profound impact on everyone who had the misfortune of experiencing them. For Elie Wiesel, the author of Night and a survivor of Auschwitz, one aspect of himself that was greatly impacted was his view of humanity. During his time before, during, and after the holocaust, Elie changed from being a boy with a relatively average outlook on mankind, to a shadow of a man with no faith in the goodness of society, before regaining confidence in humanity once again later in his life. For the first 13 years of his life, Elie seemed to have a normal outlook on humanity.
Throughout Night, dehumanization consistently took place as the tyrant Nazis oppressed the Jewish citizens. The Nazis targeted the Jews' humanity, and slowly dissolved their feeling of being human. The feeling of dehumanization was very common between the jews. They were constantly being treated as in they were animals. The author and narrator Elie Wiesel, personally experienced being treated like an animal
Elie’s thoughts are very immoral and dehumanized because he does not mourn his father’s death, but looks at it from a positive angle. In the book Hitler Youth, many German
The best way to summarize the novel Night, by Elie Wiesel, is to use the word “humanity” because of the way that Ellie struggles to preserve his own humanity as he experiences death camp, Auschwitz. Humanity is best defined as “the quality of being humane; kindness; benevolence.” Throughout Night, Elie display’s and contrasts how humanity and inhumanity are both key elements at the camp. This is the most effective way to summarize Night, for a multitude of reasons. Elie’s choices to include stories about the young boy’s hanging, his own father’s death, and the young boy who runs away from his father, are great examples of why humanity is one of the key principles in the book.
Alan Platon once said, “There is only one way in which one can endure man’s inhumanity to man and this is to try, in one’s own life, to exemplify man’s humanity to man.” Over the course of history it is very easy to see that man’s own worst enemy is often man himself. This can be seen during the Crusades or during the reign of Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany. In Night, Elie Wiesel shows how man can be so inhumane to his fellow man through his experience in the Holocaust. He also shows how one can step above this and not let inhumanity tear him apart.
To find a man who has not experienced suffering is impossible; to have man without hardship is equally unfeasible. Such trials are a part of life and assert that one is alive by shaping one’s character. In the autobiographical memoir Night by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, this molding is depicted through Elie’s transformation concerning his identity, faith, and perspective. As a young boy, Elie and his fellow neighbors of Sighet, Romania were sent to Auschwitz, a macabre concentration camp with the sole motive of torturing and killing Jews like himself. There, Elie experiences unimaginable suffering, and upon liberation a year later, leaves as a transformed person.
Dehumanization Causing Events in Night Over the course of Eliezer’s holocaust experience in the novel Night, the Jews are gradually reduced to little more that “things” which were a nuisance to Nazis. This process was called dehumanization. Three examples of events that occurred which contributed to the dehumanization of Eliezer, his father, and his fellow Jews are: people were divided both mentally and physically, those who could not work or who showed weakness were killed, and public executions were held.
Inhumanity and Cruelty in Night Adolf Hitler, the Nazi dictator of Germany, conducted a genocide known as the Holocaust during World War II that was intended to exterminate the Jewish population. The Holocaust was responsible for the death of about 6 million Jews. Night is a nonfiction novel written by Eliezer Wiesel about his experience during the Holocaust. Many events in the novel convey a theme of “man’s inhumanity to man”. The prisoners of the concentration camps are constantly tortured and neglected by the German officers who run the camps.
