ipl-logo

Internal And External Conflicts In Night By Elie Wiesel

814 Words4 Pages

Anna Hathorn
Ronda Beaudoin
Honors English 10
6 March 2023
Elizer Wiesel’s Responses to Internal and External Conflicts and How They Shape His Identity

The Holocaust caused the persecution of approximately six million Jews, all which went through internal and external conflicts. Eliezer is a one in 6 million accounts of the Holocaust, but he speaks for so many others that had their voice taken from them. He gives readers a first person account of the anguish that many went through. In Night, written by Eliezer Wiesel, the author's responses to internal and external conflicts develop his identity by displaying changes in his environment, his struggle with his religious beliefs, and his realization of how cruel the world is.
Eliezer Wiesel …show more content…

He is having a hard time staying true to his faith while going through such pain. Before the Holocaust, he only saw God as a forgiving and merciful God. He said to himself, “How could I say to Him: Blessed be thou, Almight, Master of the Universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night, to watch our fathers, our mothers, our brothers end up in furnaces” (67). He does not realize God can be a harsh and challenging God as well. He struggles to come to terms with why God wouldn’t condemn the Nazi’s for commiting such crimes. “Blessed be God’s name? Why? Why would I bless him? Every fiber in me rebelled. He caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves. He kept six crematoria working day and night including Sabbath and the Holy Days'' (67). At this point in the book Eliezer is feeling a lot of resentment towards God. He does not understand how and why his fellow Jews continue to turn to him. Why can they not see that God put them in this place? Eliezer would “never forget those flames that consumed [his] faith forever” (34). The text displaces that Eliezer was a very religious person in the beginning of the book. But, as the text goes on it is shown how easily that faith and belief goes

Show More
Related
657 Words | 3 Pages

Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.” (34). In this quote, he’s acknowledging that what the Nazis had done had destroyed his faith. His faith is shaken by the existence of the horrors that the Nazis are doing, in this case the children being burnt. He compares the smoke from the children’s bodies to his faith also going up in smoke; his faith being destroyed along with the

Read More
833 Words | 4 Pages

Where’s God? How can I believe, how can anyone believe in this God of Mercy?” (77). He felt guilty for what he had said but he had been through so much in the concentration camp that he could no longer take it. The rabbi and Akiba questing God shows their loss of faith.

Read More
748 Words | 3 Pages

Eliezer's hatred towards religious commitment looks far removed from the days before in the first chapter when he rigorously studied and learning from the cabbala with Moshe the Beadle. The experiences he has gone through while in the concentration camps and inflamed feelings towards God shows his faith being

Read More
292 Words | 2 Pages

The eternal, lord of the universe, the all-powerful and terrible was silent..."(pg 31). Eliezer doesn't understand why God has left them and why all the terrible things are happening. We also see Eliezer at the beginning of the memoir being a family-oriented

Read More
1017 Words | 5 Pages

The passage reveals God was not tied to Eliezer anymore. As events intensified, people’s beliefs in God, such as Eliezer and Moshel, were lacking, and so was their faith. Religion is one of the factors that lead to people losing faith in themselves or others, but savagery and inhumanity are also major contributors. Eliezer has encountered and been informed of the cold-blooded occurrences by humans during his time in the concentration camps. Eliezer wonders dumbfoundedly, “How could it be possible for them to burn people, children, and for the world to keep silent?”

Read More
1074 Words | 5 Pages

Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe? ,” (pg. 5). This contrast makes the reader think a great deal, and maybe challenges their own thoughts on God from how powerful the situation is; these inhumane things are being done so frequently, that it forces people like the Jews to revert to a

Read More
1079 Words | 5 Pages

Elie Wiesel was a young boy living a normal life in Sighet Poland. He practiced Judaism and studied texts such as the Talmud and he even studied the Kabbalah. In the beginning of his memoir, Wiesel is an innocent somewhat spoiled young boy who only thinks about studying Jewish texts. Little did he know that he was about to be apart of one of the most systematic racist acts in history, no one saw it coming. In the memoir Night, Wiesel discusses the systematic dehumanization of the Jews and the horrific reality of the holocaust.

Read More
274 Words | 2 Pages

However, when he witnesses the horrific events inside of the camps all he can think of doing is to question why. Questioning as for what have the Jews done to deserve such severe punishments, why were so many of his people being massacred,

Read More
931 Words | 4 Pages

It is a common assumption among numerous people in the world that the Holocaust never existed. In fact, almost fifty percent of the world population never even heard of the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel helped people around the world learn about the Holocaust through his book “Night.” He wanted people to see the bravery, courage, and guilt of the Jews through his book. “Night” shows the horrific and malicious acts in the German concentration camps during the Holocaust.

Read More
1262 Words | 6 Pages

During the events at Auschwitz, the Jews of the camp would often pray, but the justifiability of their prayers were questioned by Elie. He describes his confliction with an extreme amount of emotion, “Blessed be God's name? Why, but why would I bless him? Every fiber in me rebelled… He caused thousands of children to burn in his mass graves” (Wiesel 67).

Read More
1374 Words | 6 Pages

By overcoming his faith in both his father and his God, he turned to himself for protection and hope. With his father, his faith was created through the situational case of the Holocaust, as they transformed their relationship because of their need to survive. However, ultimately, this faith was deemed to be redundant, as his father ended up hurting him, and his chance of survival. Coming into the camps, Eliezer was a religious boy, even trying to pursue and further understand the Cabbala. However, after seeing innocent people get killed, under the so-called “watch” of God, he began to doubt his faith.

Read More
532 Words | 3 Pages

He struggles with this concept throughout the book, at one time he even denied his faith entirely. Eliezer witnesses countless horrors that shake his faith to the core. He sees innocent people being beaten and killed for no reason and can't help but wonder how or why such a loving god could allow such things to happen. As time goes on Eliezer becomes increasingly disillusioned with his faith. He watches as his fellow prisoners turn against each other, stealing food in order to survive.

Read More
1056 Words | 5 Pages

Before he was ever sent to the camps, he was asked why he prayed to which he thought it was a “strange question,” (Wiesel 4) it was as if asking “Why did I live? Why did I breathe?” (4) as he explains. Though later experiencing such terrors in the camps, he often compares them to hell on earth. Through the novel he switches from blaming his god to humanity for such horrors, he early on claims that he will never “forget those moments that murdered my god and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.”

Read More
1212 Words | 5 Pages

The Holocaust was a genocide during World War II, in which Adolf Hitler and German Nazis systematically assassinated over six million innocent Jews. Prior to the Holocaust, the Jewish population was calculated as 9,508,340, and at the end of the Holocaust the numbers had drastically faltered to around 300,000 survivors… only 9% of the once flourishing Jewish population. Among these survivors was Eliezer Wiesel, author of the award-winning book Night. In Night, tragic events transform the Jewish people and cause them to behave immorally and cruelly. Though Elie never fully escapes his fate, he comes close.

Read More
1039 Words | 5 Pages

Eliezer was very close to god and wanted to learn anything he could. Once he was taken away from his home, he began losing faith in god and lost all hope. Eliezer stopped praying and he believed that god was unjust. Eliezer felt as though god was uncaring and so he stopped believing in him. His view on god changed juristically throughout Night.

Read More

More about Internal And External Conflicts In Night By Elie Wiesel

Related Topics

Open Document