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Themes In Night By Elie Wiesel

1059 Words5 Pages

Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor that has used his experience to write and publish a memoir, Night. In this book, Wiesel talks about the journey and hardships he and his father faced while imprisoned in the concentration camps. Night portrays numerous themes, one of which being self preservation. This is depicted in a multitude of scenarios along with Wiesel's battle with the temptations that he is faced with in regard to choosing between self preservation and altruism. When one is being forced to endure the abysmal conditions of those who were imprisoned by Nazi soldiers, one becomes desperate. In times of desperation, the morality of individuals is questioned, to others as well as themselves - whether they realize it or not. Prisoners of …show more content…

Despite Eli’s best efforts to bring attention to his fathers illness and get help, there was nothing anyone would or could do to remedy his fathers worsening condition. His father remained ill in the barracks, lying in wait for death to provide the sweet relief he had been longing for. His fathers condition continued to worsen, he began to hallucinate, he could no longer get up to relieve himself, and he became a burden to his bunk mates. Despite this, Elie did his best to care for his father and make peace with those around him. The Blockalteste noticed and observed this, and had given Elie a piece of advice in regard to his fathers being. “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 can not 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. Let me give you good advice: stop giving your ration of bread and soup to your old father. You cannot help him anymore. And you are hurting yourself. In fact, you should be getting his rations..” (Wiesel 110). Elie did in fact consider and was tempted, though he quickly came to terms with his resolve and conscience. He continued to treat his old father, feeding him, keeping him company and bringing him the occasional portion of water. Despite his dedication, his father had passed away, presumably taken while Elie was asleep, his last words being his son's

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When they first arrived at Auschwitz Elie and his father looked to each other for support and survival, Sometimes Elie’s father being the only thing keeping him alive. In their old community Elie’s father was a strong-willed and respected community leader, as the book went on you could see how the roles were becoming reversed he was becoming weaker and more reliant on Elie to take care of him. Their father son bond had always been strong and only grew stronger with the things they had to endure. “My God, Lord of the Universe, give me strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahou’s son has done” Elie was disgusted when he saw Rabbi Eliahou’s son abandon his father to help improve his chances of his survival he prayed he’d never do such a thing, but as his father becoming progressively more reliant on Elie he started to see his father as more of a burden than anything else.

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Although he was aware that going against the SS officers was dangerous and he could die as well, he argued with the officers to leave his father alone. He also tried his best to wake his father up because the importance of his father and his company was more than his survival. In short, Elie and his father prioritized each other enough to provide them with the ability to face challenging situations that came up due to their desperation to stick together at all times. On the other hand, some people believed that neglecting their families was the only option left, since it seemed to prevent them from staying

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He was able to continuously replenish his weak, old father little by little by making sacrifices such as by giving up his “ration of bread and soup” (110) due to his health and youth. But one aspect that he did not notice was that “every man for himself and . . . each of us lives and dies alone” (110). Elie does not discard his hopes of killing two birds with one stone, until at the end of the novel, when the doctor points out

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Elie has every reason to believe his father would be taken. Elie is becoming much weaker and is unable to work as effectively, yet he no longer regards his own safety as his utmost priority. This is the same Elie who had disobeyed his father’s orders in the past, the same Elie who felt that his father cared more about the community than him. Even after all this, he grows to have his father as such a massive priority for him, that he no longer thinks of his own survival as his number one priority. Elie desperately clings to his father as the last vestige of his former life.

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Furthermore, Elie’s relationship with his father worsened as they spent more time at the concentration camp. In this scene, Elie’s father is extremely sick after having been in the concentration camp for a long time. After his father is gone in the morning and assumed to have been sent to the furnace because of his poor condition, Elie expresses to the reader how he did not necessarily feel sad after his father got sick and died. While explaining his emotions surrounding his fathers death,

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In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone. Let me give you good advice: stop giving your ration of bread and soup to your old father. You cannot help him anymore. And you are hurting yourself.

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When Eli's father is hurt at the start of his time in the camps, he cares deeply about him. But the longer he spends there, the less Elie cares about violence. Finally, Elie becomes greedy, which turns into guilt. Elie loses track of his father and starts to look for him, but he thinks about what would happen if he stopped guiding his father to survival. "If only I were relieved of this responsibility, I could use all my strength to fight for my own survival, to take care only of myself...

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In the coming weeks, the true weight of the situation landed on Elie. In Night, Elie goes as far as to not describe his life during the period after his father's death as, “It no longer mattered anymore” (Wiesel 113). He goes on to say, “Since my father’s death, nothing mattered during that period” (Wiesel 113). While Elie’s father was a responsibility Elie did not wish to bear during the camps, he soon came to find out that without him his life lacked meaning. Without his father, he had lost the one thing he had left that brought him purpose.

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The parent-son situation has changed for Elie, and Elie now has to take on the responsibilities to care and tend to his father in order to ensure he will survive against the other camp inmates as well as the camp itself. This lack of being able to be cared for by someone else and now having to handle the hardships of caring for someone else greater than him as well as himself exemplifies how Elie faced severe burdens that shook his

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He was running next to me, out of breath, out of strength, desperate. I had no right to let myself die. What would he do without me? I was his sole support” (Wiesel 86-87). Elie told himself that he had to live because his only family was now his father. Because of this, Elie realized that if he died then his father would be alone and he would lose all of his motivation to keep on going without Elie.

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This would lead Elie to give “a ration of bread .. to change beds with a prisoner in [his] father’s bunk” (113). This choice of going out of his way to bunk with his father shows his commitment to him. Him giving up his ration could’ve caused his death but he did it anyway to support his father. His father was sick but Elie made sure to give up one thing that supported him to support his father. On the other hand, many sons would choose to betray their father to preserve

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“And I started to hit him harder and harder. At last, my father half opened his eyes. They were glassy. He was breathing faintly” (Wiesel 99). Even though Elie knew it was very cold and that he himself needed to keep warm he made sure that his father was going to live.

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As he found himself around people and an ambient where everyone survives for himself, he became aware that he has many responsibilities to do compared to his before concentration camp life. Elie develops new ideas based on the responsibilities that each individual possesses as he confronts with corruption. As he encountered with his father’s hard sickness, Elie understood that he holds many burdens that should be completed, since he wasn’t a child anymore. Now it was his time to take care of him as he did once for Elie, illustrated as he says "I gave him what was left of my soup. But my heart was heavy.

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When they were being evacuated on the death march Elie was quickly losing strength and “the idea of dying, of ceasing to be, began to fascinate” him (86). He was put in a hard spot where if he stopped for a break he would be trampled or shot, but to continue to run meant more pain, especially for his throbbing foot, and he was already so exhausted. In this case, it was Elie’s father who helped him survive. Elie knew he was his father’s sole support and that if he died his father probably would too. Since his father was there, Elie gave himself the mindset that he had to push on, but if his father had not been there beside him he could have easily chosen the other option and let himself fall to the ground.

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Even of his father. Here there are no fathers, no brothers, no friends. Everyone lives and dies for himself alone. I’ll give you a soul piece of advice-don’t give your ration of bread and soup to your old father, There’s nothing you can do for him. And you’re killing yourself.

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