The Theme Of Survive In Night By Elie Wiesel

The Will to Survive

In the book Night by Elie Wiesel we are confronted with the very epitome of evil. When I started this class I had no idea the depth of that evil or the will of the human spirit to survive. In the midst of such atrocities we see Elie go from a young man of fifteen—full of faith, full of spirit, and so innocent. He is transformed or rather forced into a man. This all occurred in one night. The overall theme for this book is Elie’s transformation and by his very will to survive, the indifference and Finally, the significance of death throughout his captivity. The death of his family, the death of his innocence, and the death of life as a Jew.

The book Night begins in 1941 in the town of Sighet, Transylvania. Elie is an observant,

He explains in his quiet, peaceful demeanor the horrors of that night and how it haunts him to this day. He explains, “For a long time I wondered, “Did I see that? He continues to say,” There are many things that remain hidden inside you—it takes a special key to open them” He recalls the worst thing while in the camps was when he did not help his sick, dying father because he wanted to live.(Winfrey, 2000, p. 3) To survive. He wanted to survive. Finally, in the end, it is more than survival that haunts him it’s the death and the indifference. The death of his family, specifically at the end at the death of his father, the death of his dreams. Never again would he look at the world as a good place, rather he will forever see the evil that it is capable of and be haunted by the shadows that cry from the grounds of Auschwitz. He will be haunted by those that stood by and did nothing. He ends by saying that his deepest regret was not doing more. It is his passion as a humanitarian to speak against indifference. Indifference is evil and creates evil. Elie Wiesel is a hero. He survives against all odds and he has taken his experience to speak for the shadows of Auschwitz and to educate about the dangers of indifference. But beneath all of that, he is haunted by his survival, haunted by the death that surrounded him physically and spiritually and it is his plight to bear witness and to ensure that it never happens