Morality And Selfishness In Eliezer Wiesel's Night

In Eliezer Wiesel’s book Night, Eli is incarcerated in a concentration camp and witnesses his fellow prisoners either die or transform into a brute, a person who cares only for his own survival, often at the expense of others. Many have debated as to whether or not Eli makes that transformation. Based on what I have read in Night, I have concluded that Eli has experienced both morality and brutishness during his imprisonment. Throughout Night, Eli has shown a deep love and concern for his father’s well-being, and would go to great measures to ensure his father’s safety. On page 99, his father had fallen asleep in the snow and nearly died in his sleep, and the so-called ‘gravediggers’ were planning on disposing of his body. Even though Eli could have taken his father’s clothing to warm himself, Eli was convinced his father was still alive and begged the gravediggers not to take him, slapping his father harder and harder until he woke up, scarcely alive. This is just one example of that deep concern. On page 91 of Night, Eli is shown to have a moment of brutish thought. After seeing Rabbi Eliahu search for his son and remembering that the son had rushed ahead, as if to escape

Early on in the book, Eli actively avoids becoming one of them, but he struggles with this as Night goes on. He starts to have brutish thoughts as he sees another son abandon his father for the sake of survival, but quickly decides not to. However, Eli’s morality finally breaks with his father’s death. Although on the surface, Eli feels grief and wishes that his father could still be alive, within himself, Eli finds a feeling of relief, as if a burden had been lifted from him. This shows that the longer Eli spent in the concentration camp, the weaker his moral sense became. These examples from Night prove that Eli experienced both morality and