Faith In Elie Wiesel's Night

Faith influences everyone; whether it be faith in a god, a person, or one's own self, faith is ever present. It is one of the most powerful things in all of history; it migrated thousands of people, killed millions, and influences laws in every society. During World War II, the Nazi party of Germany killed up to 6 million people of the Jewish religion. Some of these Jews maintained their faith while they were being killed, some started to break from it, and many lost it completely. If their god was the reason they were being persecuted, how could they have faith in him? This is a major topic in Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night. Elie tells of his life as a young Jewish boy who survives the concentration camps he was enslaved in, and he describes the way his

This is where—hanging here from this gallows …’” (65). This quote shows how Elie believed that the Nazis had killed his god, and how that god was no longer there to help him. In Inherit the Wind, the defending attorney, Henry Drummond, believed that the presence of religion in the town was moving the town backwards and not progressing with the times. This was most evident when Bertram Cates attempted to teach the theory of evolution in his classroom and was arrested for it. Cates and Drummond attempt the impossible: going against the word of God, and, consequently, everyone in the town of Hillsboro. Drummond sees the evil of religion, the exceptionalism and narrow-mindedness that coincides with the religiously devout. While arguing with Brady about heaven, Drummond says “as long as the prerequisite for that shining paradise is ignorance, bigotry, and hate, I say to hell with them,” (30). Drummond identifies that the religious are hypocritical, declaring that they believe in all things holy and the good of people while they themselves are vain and prejudiced. This shows how in both stories the impact that faith leaves on the characters is not always