Loss Of Faith In Eliezer Wiesel's Night

From Devotion to Doubt As a young adolescent, Eliezer Wiesel is taken to a place where he is beaten, spit on, and treated like nothing more than an object. In his memoir, Night, Eliezer takes readers on a journey through the horrors of being a young Jew in a concentration camp during the Holocaust. These camps are so awful that public hangings and burning people alive are normal occurrences. Witnessing and experiencing these horrific events causes Eliezer’s previously unshakable faith in God to waver. Eliezer’s loss of faith helps to develop both the plot and his character upon arriving at the camps, during the Jewish New Year celebration, and during the public hanging of a young boy. The first test of Eliezer’s faith happens when he first arrives at the concentration camp. Previously, the Jews had viewed the Germans as kind rather than evil. The community would not listen to anyone who had experienced the true

In the camps, hangings were always publicly showcased. Eliezer is so accustomed to it that this gruesome spectacle no longer emotionally affects him in the way that it normally would. During and after the execution ceremonies, he and the other prisoners make casual remarks such as, “I remember that I found the soup excellent that evening” (Wiesel 46). Death is so common that Eliezer is more worried about being fed. That is, until the hanging of a young boy. This ceremony has an enormous effect on everyone, including the brutal SS officers, because the boy is so young, and he does not die right away. He hangs there suffering for a substantial amount of time. As this is happening, someone standing behind Eliezer asks where God is during this time, and Eliezer answers, “Where is He? Here He is – He is hanging here on this gallows” (Wiesel 48). Eliezer’s character is continuing to change and develop in this moment. He is no longer angry with God. God is simply dead to