Faith in graciousness is easily maintained in a world of peace, but when peace turns to war, faith can be disoriented. In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, the central idea of the struggle to maintain faith in a benevolent God is developed by the usage of symbolism throughout the novel. The holocaust caused the loss of faith in God for many victims, Elie struggled with his faith during his time in the camps. The hanging of the Pipel, cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners, and night, are examples of symbolism used to express Elie’s struggle with his faith. Symbolism is used to show Elie’s loss of faith in a benevolent God, through the hanging of the Pipel. The Pipel was a young innocent child who was the assistant to a Kapo. The Pipel was …show more content…
The cruel and inhuman treatment of the prisoners symbolizes the death and violence of the holocaust. The use of symbolism helps further the central idea of Elie’s struggle to maintain faith in a benevolent God. In the camp Elie meets a man named Akiba Drumer. Akiba Drumer was a very religious rabi who preached to the prisoners. He represents the faith in God at the camp, his reasoning for the horrors they experience is God testing the Jewish people. While he is preaching, Elie thinks about his faith in God. Elie says, “I was not denying his existence, but I doubted his absolute justice” (45). Elie experiences violence and death almost immediately after being sent to the camps, he sees the darkest side of humanity while in the camps. His experiences with cruel and inhuman treatment cause him to question his faith. He does not question his faith in God, but he questions God’s benevolence. Elie’s faith dies more and more as he experiences more violence and death. He doesn’t believe God could let something this horrible happen to a whole race of people, especially in the twentieth century. The cruel and inhuman treatment of the prisoners symbolize the atrocities and horrors of the concentration camps, this example of symbolism makes Elie question his faith in a benevolent
The dehumanisation and suffering he experienced in the concentration camps stripped him of his sense of self, he felt insignificant. Elie’s traumatic past challenged his understanding of who he was and what it means to be human. Despite this, he emerged from the darkness with a profound commitment to make sure everyone remembers these atrocities and to learn from these mistakes. His identity as a survivor and advocate for human rights become his life’s purpose.
During the book, Elie becomes numb to the horror around him and becomes a different person. From the first time he stepped into a concentration camp he saw terrible things, like children being thrown into pits. He saw many people be killed by officers or by other causes. The
Night is about Elie wiesel’s struggle through the holocaust from camp to camp. In Night Elie questions god’s ability and, at Elie’s lowest points, his existence. Elie goes through a journey no teenager should endure. He is faced with unbelievable cruelty at every turn, being beaten physically and mentally. Elie’s purpose for writing this book about his experience in the holocaust is to show how his faith was tested throughout the book and as a result it caused him to see god in a different light.
He had a deep spiritual outlook and devoted abundances of time to learning the Torah, as well praying each day at the Synagogue and even sought out a mentorship under Moché the Beadle in studying the kabbalah. Elie's faith is put to the test, however, when he is brought to the concentration camps and forced to endure its brutal conditions. He experiences horrific atrocities and cruelties and finds it difficult to comprehend how God could permit such evil to exist. His once unwavering faith is shaken as he starts to doubt himself and his confidence in God after the death of a young pipel, “‘Where is He? Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows….”
The intense story Night, written by Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel, is an autobiography about a young Jewish boy’s survival of the Holocaust. Throughout this story, the main character, Elie, changes in many ways, but one of the most obvious would be his faith. At the beginning of the book, Elie is very strong in his faith and wants to spend his life studying and worshiping his God, but after spending time in the concentration camps, witnessing mass murder, and being on the brink of death, he begins to lose faith. Elie, like many of his fellow prisoners after experiencing these hardships, asks, “Where is merciful God, where is He?” (64).
During Elie’s time in the concentration camp, he battled with believing and not believing in faith. For example, when Elie starts to see the negative experience that goes on in the camp, he starts to lose faith in God, therefore he begins to question God actions. For instance, he wants to know why God was letting bad things happen to some of the prisoners, or were they supposed to learn from this experience. Another thing is that, when they arrived at the camp Elie “say’s never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp that turned my life into one long night” (Night pg. 34).
In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, there are many hardships that caused the characters to lose faith in their religion. Night is a 1960 memoir based on Weisel's Holocaust experiences with his father in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944 -1945 toward the end of the Second World War in Europe. In the novel many prisoners struggle with their faith. “Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my god and my soul and turned my drams to dust.”
But Elie is also questioning why he believes. At this point Elie still has a small amount of faith. He has begun to question why God would let something as terrible as the Holocaust happen. “’… May His Name be blessed and magnified… ‘whispered my father. For the first time, I felt revolt rise up in me.
The dehumanizing conditions and the inhumane treatment of the prisoners were simply unbearable. This leads the reader to believe that Elie is in for a wild ride in this camp and it will impact him heavily.
The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?” (33). The design of the camps intentionally tested faith, forcing the Jewish prisoners to confront the dead and dying at all times. By straining this part of Elie’s identity, the process of dehumanization began.
Elie's identity is reduced to a number, symbolizing the loss of his individuality and humanity, and emphasizing the cruel and impersonal treatment of the prisoners by the
Elie Wiesel, the author of the memoir, Night, recounts his experiences mainly as a teenager in Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. Elie’s battle to keep faith in his religious belief was a common theme throughout the book. As he began his journey to understand the faith to which he had been born, he eventually needed a mentor to guide him throughout the faith-filled process. At certain times, Elie struggled to keep true to his benevolent God when he witnessed the atrocities of the Germans on the Jews. But he managed to dig deep and muster up some courage to seek his true faith.
Using the event of the child being hanged to directly relate it to the faith of Jewish prisoners in the time of the Holocaust helps readers understand the emotional and spiritual impact of seeing human suffering on a level like this. Many Jewish prisoners, including Eliezer, have slowly been losing faith in God but this event made them question how someone so powerful as their God could let something like this happen. Using an event as cruel and despicable as this helps readers understand how the Jewish prisoners lost their faith and understanding of God in times as harsh and dark as
God’s perceived silence during a time of desperate need can lead to the lost of faith or doubt within oneself. In Elie Wiesel’s Night, the narrator struggles to maintain his faith and his identity he witnesses the dehumanizing acts being inflicted upon him and many other Jews. As he experience more and more atrocities in the camps, Elie begins to rebel against his religious upbringing. Elie survives the Holocaust through a battle of conscience: first believing wholeheartedly in God, then resisting that faith, and finally reclaiming that faith.
“We are never defeated unless we give up on God” (Ronald Reagan).When no faith remains, it makes one a soulless man. Elie Wiesel uses Night to comment on the effects of the unforgettable experiences and grisly events that he has encountered during the Holocaust. Though Elie Wiesel was once a devoted Jew, when he experienced the gruesome treatments and witnessed the undeserved suffering in the concentration camps, he ultimately succumbed to the destruction of his faith and the ruination of his identity. Religion had always been an indispensable part of Elie Wiesel’s life, but the Holocaust prompted the faltering of his faith. Before his days at the concentration camps, Elie Wiesel was a fervently devout child who, unlike most kids , preferred