The memoir Night is a text that displays several theme topics with deeply rooted emotional ties. One theme that is expressed and explored in Night is self preservation versus family commitment. An instance nearing the beginning of the story involves the former maid of the Wiesel family offering a safe place at her village so the family would not be taken away to the concentration camps. In response, Elie’s father tells Elie and his two elder sisters, "If you wish, go there. I shall stay here with your mother and the little one…" Elie and his sisters refuse, which demonstrates how they would rather keep their family together than protect themselves. Their refusal showed how they would easily turn down a safe place in favor of staying with their family. …show more content…
Rabbi Eliahu had come to Elie and his father, asking where his son was after a long and arduous run to a different camp. In response, Elie said that he did not know. However, he later realized that he had seen Rabbi Eliahu’s son, although not in a favorable light. The instance Elie had recalled was “But then I remembered something else: his son had seen him losing ground, sliding back to the rear of the column. He had seen him. And he had continued to run in front, letting the distance between them become greater.” Rabbi Eliahu’s son had shown that he valued self preservation over family commitment by making no effort to help his father through the run. He had decreed his father to be a burden upon himself and had left him behind which displays no sense of family