In the book Night, by Elie Wiesel, there was a very strong shift in the tone just within the first three chapters. “The shopkeepers were doing good business, the students lived among their books, and the children played in the streets”(Weisel 6). It is shown here that they were living ordinary, peaceful lives. “The shadows around me roused themselves as if from a deep sleep and left silently in every direction”(Weisel 14). This is where people began to no longer feel peaceful and began the long journey of fear and worry that would get worse throughout the book.
Later, the remaining Jews arrive at Buchenwald, yet another camp, and find themselves mired in snow. They “jostle” each other in order to enter a broken down warehouse just to get the opportunity to rest in the snow. Due to the pollution of the resources available to the Jewish prisoners, Elie’s father contracts dysentary from drinking the contaminated water. Because of this, Elie’s
Elie Wiesel’s “Night” depicts death, obliteration, and anguish while directly depicting the suffering he witnessed during his time at Auschwitz, a concentration camp for Jews during World War II. Within the story, there is an overwhelming amount of times the Jews had been in distress. Many children had been separated from their parents and all of the Jews were taken from their homes. Their suffering seemed endless. They were no longer teachers, homeowners, or priests.
At what point does respect no longer matter? When does the need for survival take over grief? When do the tears dry up in order to stay alive?
Winter came around and Elie’s foot began to swell, resulting in him needing surgery. In the infirmary the food was a bit better and he did little things for his father, for example,“From time to time, I was able to send a piece of bread to my father”(pg. 78). The supply of food was very limited, more like a crumb of bread and a small serving of vile soup. Food was an essential piece of life and one of the few reasons people would push through horrid days. Food for the workers was like a lollipop is to a five year old, they would basically do anything for it.
Elie was exhausted along with the other prisoners after the officers made them do a death march because they needed to be transferred to a new camp once again like other times. When they reached their stopping destination they came to the choice of either staying awake and living or sleeping and dying. It was now up to Elie to choose. They would sleep and die in the snow due to three things. Starvation, dehydration, and or hypothermia, but if they stayed awake they had a better chance of surviving.
For Elie, his survival can be attributed to the choices he made when faced with various choiceless choices, like choosing work or death and lying or telling the truth, as well as having his father right by his side the entire journey. Immediately after Elie and his father arrive at camp they are presented with a choiceless choice. They are told, “Here, you must work. If you don’t you will go straight to the chimney. To the crematorium.
With the little amount of food Elie already gets he would try to ration the food but after witnessing the death of that child, “That night the
Although survival was a key aspect in concentration camps, Elie gradually begins to live numbly, surviving only because instinct told him to. He no longer cared for the meaning of life, and his only thoughts were of bread, much like a stray dog hoping it would find morsels of food to live off of. However, he didn't start off this way. At the start, he lived for his father. Schlomo Wiesel was Elie's only reason to live, but prior to his father's death, he slowly began to free himself of caring.
To summarize, Elie should be getting more rations in order to become stronger and do more work which would increase his chances of survival. As a result, food became important resource since it gave workers the energy they need to perform their duties. Through this interaction, the fellow prisoner wants Elie to put his survival over family relationships and to cut ties with his father. Similarly, in the film Life is Beautiful, when Joshua shows up at the foundry, Guido tells to him to go back to the other children. In other words, Joshua should stay away as a result of his father’s work in a dangerous area.
So, not only is he transcending nature he is also exceeding the hate thrown at him. When Elie was cold the hatred encompassing him only fueled him to keep going and to be something more than just a prisoner. They became another number in a crowd of even more faceless people. The snow that enveloped him was what was keeping him alive. As described in the book, “I shivered with every step.
Following the many months after the death of Elie’s father, the liberators made their way into Buchenwald, the camp in which Elie was located, and set all of the prisoners free. As stated by Elie Wiesel, no one thought of revenge or of their hunger, they solely thought of throwing themselves onto the provisions (Wiesel 119). The people who were terrified throughout this entire nightmare, were finally free and did not want to think about the hate that had consumed their captors. After this horrendous journey, Elie was a different man than he was only a year ago. The night had left him scarred mentally and physically.
The prisoners were forced to do a two-night death march to Gleiwitz; they ran over 20 kilometers through poor and snowy weather conditions. After arriving they were packed into cattle cars and for 3 days they traveled with no food or water to Buchenwald. Elie’s father barely made it through the last stretch of the trip and has become deathly ill. Over the next few days, he barely makes it and finally passes away from a beating because a guard was angry. Elie is witness to this and his father calls out his name as he dies.
The description of snow taking the place of bread emphasizes the extent of their starvation. Bread is the main food described in this memoir that the Jews were regularly given for meals, along with soup. Wiesel specifically referring to snow replacing bread emphasizes how although they were being starved previously, the rate of hunger increased as they were being transported, thereby increasing the fear of death and desperation. Their survival in the camps in terms of food availability was somewhat consistent, while during transport there was no guarantee of food at all. Shortly after Elie describes the severity of the situation, he recalls another event he witnessed involving how much the prisoners changed due to starvation.
How Mental Disorders Contributes to Serial Killers A serial killer and the reasons for their behavior are so unlike there is no basis to compare to other criminals and the reasons they commit their crimes. One reason why is that most serial killers are affected with various mental disorders, also known as a mental illness.
