Elzer's Relationship With His Father In Night Elie Wiesel

Elie's father being alive was something like a crutch for him. Elie's foot had started to swell because it was cold out, and there was discussion about the Red Army approaching, and how the Nazi's would kill off all the injured. Elie, however, had a different mindset,"As for me, I was thinking not about death but about not wanting to be separated from my father." (Wiesel 82). Elie's desire to be with his father and care for him was great, but he would suppress his own pain for his father, which in turn, could've killed Elie.

Many people live for other people, that is why relationships are so important. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the motif of father/son relationship develops to characters of Elie and his father by needing each other for survival and giving one another a reason to live. In the beginning of the novel, Elie and his father did not have a close relationship,

Before going to the camps Elie and his father was not very close. For example Elie father is unsentimental towards his own kids but very sentimental towards the community and its people. Elie said”My father was cultured man rather unsentimental. ”(Pg.4) This shows that Elie his father

In the camps, Elie and his father only had each other, and that changed the way they felt about each other from the very beginning. Elie had almost no relationship with his father prior to the holocaust. Back in his hometown of Sighet, Elie's father was a busy community leader, and his work gave him little time for his family. Elie recalls that his father "rarely displayed his feelings... and was more involved with the well welfare of others than with that of his own kin" (Wiesel

Quickly! Go on. Take what I'm giving you!"(Wiesel, 55) This shows in the camp while most of the story shows Elie protecting his father and he is unable to stand on his own.

This was the kind of affection Elie had towards his dad. But as times got tougher and rations of servings decreased, he finds himself as selfish as the others. He thinks that now his father had become a sort of burden for him. He also quotes the example of the Rabbi and his son where the son had left the Rabbi alone because the Rabbi was considered as a burden. He also narrates another time where a boy killed his father in the train for a ration of bread.

His father was the only thing that kept him going - had he not been with him, Elie would have given in by now - he had already lost his faith. His father’s life was the only thing that kept Elie strong. His love for his father prevented him from becoming self-obsessed. This point in the novel, when Elie and his father work together, was the highest point of their relationship. They worked together - always - to solve

Over 6 million innocent Jews lost their lives due to one man’s greed for power and satisfaction. This horrific event caused many people to be filled with hopelessness, tribulation, and adversity. In the book, “Night”, Elie’s identity was completely altered since the beginning to the end. His faith went from growing stronger every day, to gradually ceasing to exist. Everything that mattered most to him was slowly evaporating away during this life-changing catastrophe.

With the little strength he had, Elie fought for his father and what was left of his father’s pride. When his father was closer to death Elie took even better care of his father, he even promised his father that “[they] will look after each other”(89). Later he even gave his food to his father knowing it could lessen his own chance of staying alive. Their relationship demonstrates that Elie’s loyalty and love for his father is stronger than his instinct for

Night Elie’s relationship with his father changed drastically throughout the book. In the beginning of the story Elie admires his father, looks up to him, treats him with the utmost respect, and always feels safe around him. In the book on page 20 Elie’s father offers Elie and his sister a chance to escape and flee to a safe shelter. Elie and his sister refuse because they want to stick together as a family, they do not want to part. They makes this decision because they feel safer with their parents then they do by themselves.

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.

Elie’s relationship with his dad over the course of the story changed drastically. The quote, “My father was running left to right exhausted, consoling friends,” (pg 15) shows the reader that Elie 's father tried to keep everyone calm, which means he always did the same for Elie. That shows they had a strong relationship at the start of the story. Accordingly, the quote, “Father! Father!

Near the beginning of the novel, Elie wanted to be in the same camp with his father more than anything else. The work given to both his father and himself was bearable, but as time passed by, “. . . his father was getting weaker” (107). The weaker Elie’s father got, the more sacrifices Elie made. After realizing the many treatments Elie was giving his father compared to himself, each additional sacrifice made Elie feel as if his “. . .

The empathy he felt for his father is what drove him to stay alive, to fight for his life. Without his father, he would have given into exhaustion long before the American tanks arrived at the camp. Elie's father gave him strength, therefore giving him resilience. Strong people are resilient people; it took everything Elie had to keep himself alive. In the times he wanted so badly just to lie down, to give up it was his father's presence which kept him alive.

Elie 's inaction or inability to help his father and his guilt for not doing so helped Elie to shape the person he has become now is because he kept on realizing his stand on the situation on the harsh behavior towards his father. As he starts to live more with his father he became started to realize how important he was to him and how important he is for him. In the book Night, Chapter 7, when Elie and his after were on the cattle car he said"My father had huddled near me, draped in his blanket, shoulders laden with snow. And what if he were dead as well? I called out to him.