A theme from Elie Wiesel’s memoir “Night” is losing faith in god. I think that this is a theme that presents itself throughout the book. Elie shares his story of being brave and persevering through the holocaust. Elie bears witness to the horrifying events and showed a clear representation of what a jew would be going through during WWII.
He shows other themes in this novel. He often shows the want for revenge against his tormentors, the S.S. He shows this and other themes throughout the book. With each horrible experience, the harder it was for him to believe in a higher power. There is also the theme of hatred. The jews hate the nazis and the nazis hate the jews. Hitler hated the jews just because they were jews, Elie hated nazis because of their actions.
At the book’s start, Elie shows great devotion to his religion
…show more content…
His father was a rabbi and his family was very religious. When asked why he prays,he says “Why did I pray?...why did I live?, Why did I breathe?”. He couldn’t imagine not having faith in his life. Judaism teaches that god is everywhere and if god is good, the world must be good. So, after his holocaust experiences he thinks god has to either be disgusting and evil or not exist at all. Eliezer’s faith in the in the world is broken by the cruel, heartless and barbaric acts that he witnessed during his experience at the camps. He would never think that they would represent the god he has learned about and his values. Why would a divine god be part of such intolerance?. His faith is also shaken by the attitudes and selfishness he sees among the prisoners. If the prisoners acted differently, he would then probably be able to believe that humankind is basically good. To Elie, The Holocaust exposes the worst qualities in everyone. Everybody in the story, besides Elie and his father, show selfishness, wickedness and brutishness, not only the Nazis, but also the