Theme Of Isolation In Night

As Sukarno once said, “The worst cruelty that can be inflicted on a human being is isolation.” In Night by Elie Wiesel, Anna Karenina, and The Old Guitarist by Pablo Picasso, the protagonists all struggle with isolation. Elie, Anna, and the old man are isolated from society because they are different than everybody else and unworthy of being included, which results in depression, death, and misery. Elie Wiesel, a Jew removed from his home and relocated to Auschwitz, is an outcast and is isolated from the rest of society because he is considered different. When Elie first arrives to the death camp, he describes his surroundings as “empty and dead” (Wiesel 47). The description of Elie’s first impression is foreshadowing of the feelings he

The Nazis have broken everybody’s spirits which results in them walking around as if they are dead. They are treated maliciously and are constantly told that they are nothing, and that nobody cares about them. This is a huge mental problem because once they are told this constantly, they begin to believe it, which causes depression. Their agony has turned into depression which leads to a lack of emotion which leads to becoming inhuman and dead inside. The people in the camp are also empty and dead inside because the Nazis do not give them anything to live for. Most of the Jews would rather die than keep on living in the camps. After the constant beatings and mental abuse from the Nazis, Elie says, “I had neither the desire nor the resolve to get up” (Wiesel 88) The brutality the Nazis show toward the Jews is unimaginable. The constant beating and malnourishment is good reason for Elie to not ever get up again. There is no point in getting up to go starve and be mercilessly attacked by people who do not even believe he is a human being. The Nazis’ goal is to make the Jews feel as if nobody is ever going to rescue them, make them feel hopeless. They want

Elie does not believe God will ever help them because he has allowed such monstrosities to occur. When trying to choose between his own life and his father’s, Elie is given advice by one of the Kommandos who says, “Listen to me kid. Don’t forget that you are in a concentration camp. In this place, it is every man for himself, and you cannot think of others. Not even your father. In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone” (110). This is very hard to hear, especially when family is such an important thing for Jews. This causes Elie to lose hope. The camps are torturous and weaken their spirits which makes them only think about themselves, but when they are selfish, it is very miserable because they shut people out. The Jews are considered animals and because of this, they are treated awfully. Being alone is the worst thing somebody can do to a person because they end up just losing their mind because they do not have companionship. Elie is ready to give up on life, but because his father struggles to adjust to life inside Auschwitz, he has a reason to stay alive. When his father dies, however, he states