Psychological Patterns In Elie Wiesel's 'Night'

Joe Shmoe

Mr. Dai

English 10H Period 5

17 February 2023 2 Body Paragraphs + Introduction

In her diary, Anne Frank wrote that “a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.” This powerful observation resonates with the darkness interwoven in Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, in which he recounts his experiences as a Jew who survived the Nazi concentration camps. Throughout the autobiography, Elie displays prominent psychological patterns to explain how Jews allowed human atrocities to occur, using characters such as Akiba Drummer to make the intent of Jewish genocide clear. In Night, Wiesel explains how learned helplessness and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs can explain human atrocities, using Akiba Drummer’s death and Elie’s downfall as examples.

In a study conducted by Salem Health, psychologists viewed how dogs reacted to various situations. As an experimental group, a group of dogs was given unpreventable shocks, and when “the dogs were given shocks in a situation where they could avoid them, most of them did not attempt to escape” (Sniezek). The dogs demonstrate a concept called learned helplessness: when an individual underestimates their influence on the outcome of an event. When someone experiences a similar situation to past events, they predict a similar outcome and doubt their abilities to change the result, thereby submitting to the expected outcome. In Night, many Jews pray to God for positive outcomes, instead of attempting to change the outcome themselves. When faced with certain death, Elie recites “Yitgadal veyitkadach shme raba…May His name be blessed and magnified… The moment had come. [Elie] was face to face with the Angel of Death….” until he was commanded to stop and enter a separate building (Weisel 43). The miracle should have reinforced Elie’s belief in God, but instead, he declares that he lost his faith, and he will remember the situation as long as God lies. As the Holocaust progresses, more Judaists lose their faith, believing that death is inevitable. Wiesel recalls the story of Akiba Drummer, a loyal follower of God. As someone who credited his achievements to God, after being deemed unfit to live by the Nazis he declares that “It’s over. God is no longer with us” (83). When Akiba believed God was alive, there was a direct correlation between his praying and positive outcomes, with Elie and his father praying successfully to God in the face of death. However, when Jews begin to die, despite praying, Akiba Drummer and other Jews