Selfishness In Elie Wiesel's Night

Most people have good intentions. In general, they believe they are good people. While most people are not selfless, very few consider themselves to be selfish. Yet, to some degree, selfishness exists in everyone. In the holocaust memoir Night, the author Elie Wiesel details his experience as an imprisoned Jew. Wiesel is only 15 years old when he and his family are brought to Auschwitz, the infamous concentration camp. There, he and his father are separated from his mother and sister. After suffering brutal labor, starvation, and the death of his father, Wiesel is finally released almost a year later, in 1945. The poem, “I kept on Walking” by Mark Hayward, shines light upon a vastly different human experience, the story of walking past those

After an excruciating journey, Wiesel and his father arrive in Buchenwald, another concentration camp. His father has become extremely weak from months of malnutrition and abuse. During the first night at the camp, there is an alert, that separates Wiesel from his father. In the morning, he goes to look for his father; however, a thought occurs to Wiesel, “If only I didn’t find him! If only I were relieved of this responsibility, I could use all my strength to fight for my own survival, to take care only of myself”(106). Referring to his father as a responsibility implies that Wiesel sees him as a burden. Similarly, the repetition of “If only,” suggests that he is wishing his father away. Although Wiesel’s life is in jeopardy, it is selfish of him to dream of abandoning his father, a man who has loved and cared for him for 15 years. Similarly, in the poem, self-centeredness is seen in the speaker. Towards the beginning of the poem, they reflect, “I kept on walking past the run-down homes/ I had somewhere else to be/ I kept on walking as I clutched my phone/ and pretended not to see”(Hayward 5-8). To begin, the repetition of “I” indicates the speaker's self-involved thoughts. Furthermore, after they admit to ignoring the “run-down homes,” they immediately make the excuse that they have somewhere to be. Excuses are

On the final page of Night, after nearly a year of starvation, forced labor, and torture; as well as, the loss of his mother, father, and sister, Wiesel is liberated. He recalls, “Our first act as free men was to throw ourselves onto the provisions. That’s all we thought about. No thoughts of revenge, or parents. Only bread”(115). The phrase “throw ourselves onto the provisions” depicts the image of Wiesel grasping as much food as he can. Although this is an act of self-interest and greed, Wiesel’s animalistic behavior is merely driven by dehumanization. In addition, Wiesel emphasizes that he had no thoughts of revenge. The primitive thoughts reveal the effects of inhumane treatment, as one cannot form complex ideas such as revenge without first solving one's basic needs such as hunger. Similarly, he notes that he had no thoughts of his parents, “only bread,” signifying the emotionless, animalistic mindset, in which one’s next meal is the only important thing. From a completely opposite perspective, the poem suggests that selfishness is a choice. After reflecting on several situations in which the speaker noticed something was wrong, yet ignored the problem, they change from reflecting in the past tense to the present tense, sharing, “I’ll keep on walking from the things I’ve known/ but refused to really see”(Hayward 17-18). Again, the speaker is