How Elie Weisel’s Night Demonstrates What it Means to Have Control Over Life and Death
The cycle of life and death is long contemplated and feared. The extremes of death are exploited in the tragedy of the Holocaust. During the genocide people were able to grieve their own death as well as realize what it means to live a full life. First there is denial of the situation at hand, then a shift of humanity and the definition of the word,next, some are lucky to find peace in their own death. Night by Elie Wiesel illustrates how a person is able to have control over their own death and realize their completion of life.
Throughout Night Weisell shows the process of the victims of the Holocaust going through denial of their own fate and trying
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The stakes that the Jews were facing are shown through this quote. Denial of the fate described is more than understandable, but this fate was one in which the Nazi’s were in control, robbing the victims of their lives and ability to complete the cycle of life in peace. To be killed twice meant is both literal and metaphoric, referring to a death of their faith, and futures. When the Jews recited the Kaddish for themselves it was a show of control, knowing there would be no one to do it for them, enhanced when it is noted that thevictims were denied in a cemetery. When the Jews first walked into the camp they felt the hatred all around them; “The march toward the chimneys looming in the distance under an indifferent sky (Weisell xiii)”. The chimneys were the only thing Weisell saw and God, nor the world, seemed to care. As Weisell and the characters in the book lose their faith, watching what God lets happen, they understand that it is not only God who has control over their life and death. Being independent from God means a dependency of yourself. Still, those who fought death tooth and nail seemed to suffer the most traumatic fates, full of suffering. Zalman, a young …show more content…
He was fighting death and his ability to pass peacefully was taken from him. Zalman’s meaning of life was merely survival,which is no life at all. An example of a young man's life being taken from him in such a way arises sympathy from the reader because as they are able to grieve a loss that he cannot. The inability to complete his life, makes his death a murder. The Nazi’s robbed people of their ability to die on their own terms and tell the story of their lives after they passed
The death of the victims of the Holocaust was not instantaneous, instead a gradual thought out process by the Nazi’s meant to dehumanize their prisoners . Weisell explains what life was like in a concentration camp; “Hunger- thirst- fear- transport- selection- fire- chimney: these words all have intrinsic meaning, but in those times they meant something else (Weisellix).” The Jews were treated not as humans because they were not viewed as such in the eyes of the Nazi’s. This way of life was not life, but torture. Weisell shows how people were able to pass peacefully because they felt they were already dead and that this life was not their own. As a young teenager growing up in a concentration camp
Two themes that will be focused on throughout this essay are confinement and loss of identity, the cruelty shown throughout the book is enough to break someone, but with the addition of confinement and losing oneself, it breaks one deeper, it destroys and devastates whatever is left that has not already been broken. Confinement and the loss of oneself worked hand in hand to break someone mentally and physically, the officers treated everyone like they were slaves. No one was given freedom, everyone was given the bare minimum, and that included the things needed to survive: they were given a slice of bread and a bowl of soup broth. The fact that these meals were so low in nutrition was hard for the prisoners to conform to; but then on top of the malnourishment they were also performing different types of hard labor throughout the day, depending on what their job was. Even though they weren’t being fed enough the prisoners were given little to no shower time, so no-one was hygienic in the concentration and death camps, there just wasn’t time for it, because the only time they had extra was for the regular selections
The decisions you make in your life always come with a good or bad ending. In the novel “night” by elie wiesel, elie has to make life and death decisions. This novel is about how elie made decisions that lead him and his family to a concentration camp and explains the horrible things they have had to experience. In the end elie was the only survivor in his family. The decisions throughout the novel Elie made impacted his life and his innocence.
In night, Elie Wiesel, tells the story of his time in the holocaust and all the horrors that came with it. Throughout the novel, Elie Wiesel portrays a claim of saying death is not the only answer, but it is one. If they choose death, which many men did in the novel, it is the easiest way out. However, you could continue living and see what the future holds for you which is the one Elie Wiesel chose.
In 1939, a man named Adolf Hitler, a veteran of WW1, rose to power with a group of people in the “Nazi Party” and they had planned to overthrow the government. Their big plan led to a mass genocide of many groups of people but the most well-known group of that was the Jewish people. They were put into concentration camps where they would end up malnourished and treated with horrible/animalistic treatment where they would work day and night just to end up weak and unfortunately die in the process. In the book ‘Night’ written by Eliezer Wiesel, he goes into detail on the experiences that he and his father, Shlomo, endured while in the concentration camps because they were ripped apart from the other half of their family in the year 1944. Eliezer
Each of these situations build the theme of survival as Weisel shares the immoral and awful conditions at the concentration camps which he endures.
All throughout Night, we see the recurring theme of preservation of self above others. We see this often throughout Night because the prisoners’ basic rights were being taken from them and when that happens, our instincts kick in and cause us only to think of ourselves. This is true survival mode, which means nothing but you and your survival matters. The prisoners at the concentration camp were deprived of a life, their name, and even food most of the time.
Although the text is from the perspective of a victim, through their testimony the perspective of a perpetrator can be discerned. In this case, it is clear through the author how brutal the Nazis were, and yet how some still had humanity. The evil portrayed by the Nazis is based on a concept proposed by another Jew, Hannah Arendt, who stated that the evil that hides in all of us is the evil of banality, and following instructions blindly. This evil can and does lie in all of us, whether that be because of trust in authority, or because of a lack of critical thinking. Again, this links back to the Jews who at the beginning believed they were safe.
The holocaust is considered one of the worst tragedies in modern history. It claimed the lives of many people and it left a dark mark on the world’s history. Today, we remember the lives lost in many different ways. There are countless accounts written regarding life in concentration camps. Two of these accounts are Elie Wiesel’s Night and On the Bottom by Primo Levi.
Night by Elie Weisel is more than a narrative;it is a testimony of the Holocaust. Holocaust survivors were dying due to the circumstances that each one had to face. The Jewish people had an abundance of faith in God, but as they were presented with different hardships their abundance of faith started to disappear as other people started to question His existence. As he advances in his narrative of the Holocaust his perspective on not only life but on the society as he knew it, changes. Due to the tragic events he had to endure he is constantly reliving those moments that are eating him alive.
The Holocaust was an immoral machination orchestrated by the Nazi’s to eliminate any person who did not meet their criteria of a human. Millions were interned in camps all around Europe. Each person who survived the Holocaust has a different story. Within Elie Wiesel’s Night (2006) and the movie “Life is Beautiful” (2000) two different perspectives on the Holocaust are presented to audiences both however deal with the analogous subjects faced by prisoners. Inside both works you can find the general mood of sadness.
At times, it appears unviable for one’s life to transform overnight in just a few hours. However, this is something various individuals experienced in soul and flesh as they were impinged by those atrocious memoirs of the Holocaust. In addition, the symbolism portrayed throughout the novel Night, written by Elie Wiesel, presents an effective fathoming of the feelings and thoughts of what it’s like to undergo such an unethical circumstance. For instance, nighttime plays a symbolic figure throughout the progression of the story as its used to symbolize death, darkness of the soul,
In the novel, “Night” Elie Wiesel communicates with the readers his thoughts and experiences during the Holocaust. Wiesel describes his fight for survival and journey questioning god’s justice, wanting an answer to why he would allow all these deaths to occur. His first time subjected into the concentration camp he felt fear, and was warned about the chimneys where the bodies were burned and turned into ashes. Despite being warned by an inmate about Auschwitz he stayed optimistic telling himself a human can’t possibly be that cruel to another human.
The people that have the most meaning and purpose in life are those who do not value materials objects. The people that survived the concentration camps were the ones who had a sense of meaning. They could imagine life outside and didn’t give up, in hope they would once escape. They found their purpose in knowledge. .
Many survivors experienced severe trauma, depression, and anxiety that lasted long after the Holocaust ended. The dehumanization tactics used by the Nazis stripped the Jewish people of their sense of self and identity, leading many to feel empty and disconnected. For example, Wiesel’s father died earlier than he might have, due to the psychological and spiritual impact of the Holocaust. The Jews during the camps in “Night” had lost their sanity and will to live. For example, Elie Wiesel had given up on his god and felt that this was his punishment.
In a dingy wooden barrack, located in Auschwitz there housed several groups of men and women imprisoned living in wretched conditions, all praying for liberation. Such total institution has plagued their sanity. Each day they were treated like animals, deprived of food,beaten, and even stripped of their identity and dignity. During the years of 1933 to 1945,approximately 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. In conclusion, Schindler’s list illuminated the gruesome reality of what events took place during the holocaust.