As a 16 year old, I would say that I go through a lot in my day-to-day life. Waking up early everyday for school, staying in school for 7 hours, studying, and eating meals that I would argue are sometimes not the very best. If I had to imagine my 16 year old self getting stripped away from my home, being separated from my family, and to live in absolutely unlivable conditions, I wouldn’t be writing this essay right now. These conditions, however, are the exact conditions that the then-teenager Elie Wiesel and many countless others have gone through during the Holocaust. Wiesel accounts his personal experience through writing a memoir, Night, in it his experiences written with much symbolism. Unlike the 16 year old who is writing this essay after eating a filling dinner, Elie did not have the chance to sit down and eat a filling meal during the Holocaust. This however does not stray him away from writing much about food. Food is an important …show more content…
Elie and his father, however, realized how much they already fast in the camp, and decided not to fast. “In this place, we were always fasting. It was Yom Kippur year round,” Elie says (Wiesel 69). Not only did Elie decide to fast because of the lack of food already present in the camps, but also as a symbol of rebellion towards God. Elie scorns and says, “I no longer accepted God’s silence.” (Wiesel 69). However, this act of rebellion had affected Elie greatly. As he ate the piece of bread, signaling the act of not participating in Yom Kippur, Elie says, “Deep inside of me, I felt a great void opening.” (Wiesel 69). He decides not to fast and eats his bread to signify an act of rebellion towards God. The “deep void” opening in Elie represents death — the death of his religious faith. Thus, bread in this instance represents death and it is important because it shows how much his religion and his beliefs shifted throughout his experiences in the