Research Papers On Night By Elie Wiesel

“Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust” (Elie Wiesel). In Night, Elie Wiesel faces horrors unimaginable in concentration camps made to persecute Jews. He experiences a plethora of emotions, ranging from hope to emptiness. Wiesel conveys the profound impact of the Holocaust on his faith and identity. His words serve as a reminder of the atrocities committed during this dark time in history. Throughout the memoir, Elie becomes hopeless, going from a faithful boy with a future studying Kabbalah to seeing death in his own face, becoming numb and doubtful. During Elie’s journey to Auschwitz, he remains confident that he will soon be liberated, though this denial quickly becomes hopeless.

Elie's loss of faith in humanity is a central theme in the memoir, as he witnesses the atrocities committed against his people. This loss of faith ultimately shapes his perspective on the world and his own identity. Furthermore, later in the text, Elie asks himself, “What happened to me? My father had been struck in front of me, and I had not even blinked” (Wiesel, 39). Here, we see Elie become completely desensitized to the Nazis’ cruel ways. Elie's desensitization to violence reflects the dehumanizing effect of the Holocaust on its victims. This transformation further highlights the impact of trauma on Elie's perception of himself and others. Hopelessness is all Elie can feel. Wiesel had always been a faithful boy, but during his time at the concentration camps, he began to question God’s justice. An example of this can be found when we read, “My eyes had opened and I was alone in a world without God, without man. Without love or mercy” (Wiesel 68). In this quote, Elie expresses how empty he feels without the comforting presence of God in his life. Additionally, we read, “But now I no longer pleaded for anything. I was no longer able to

Elie's experiences in the concentration camps led him to feel abandoned by God, causing him to question his faith and even accuse God of wrongdoing. This shift in his perspective reflects the profound impact that his suffering had on his beliefs. Simultaneously, Elie begins to lose his ability to feel at all. He becomes completely empty, like a drone, completely stuck. He lives only for his next ration of food. On page 52, we read, “At that moment in time, all that mattered to me was my daily bowl of soup, my crust of stale bread... I was nothing but a body.” This quote demonstrates the senseless pain Wiesel is feeling. Elie's transformation into a shell of his former self illustrates the dehumanizing effects of the Holocaust. His physical and emotional suffering have stripped him of his identity and reduced him to mere survival. In addition to this, we read, “I thought of us as damned souls wandering through the void. Souls condemned to wander through space until the end of time, seeking redemption, seeking oblivion, without any hope of finding either” (Wiesel, 36). For a moment, Elie loses all hope of survival. All of his self-preservation had left