The Importance of Family in Night Safiyah Majumdar 3/6/23 “The baton moved to the left. I took half a step forward. I wanted to see first where they were sending my father. If he went to the right, I would go after him. The baton once again pointed to the left for him too. A weight was lifted from my heart. We didn't yet know which was the better side, right or left, which road led to prison and which led to the crematory, but for the moment, I was happy, I was near my father.” (p. 24) This quote from Night by Elie Wiesel paints a clear picture of what life was like during the holocaust. The book Night is a memoir about Elie's horrific Holocaust experiences with his father in these gruesome concentration camps. He begins his story in Sighet, …show more content…
"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 cannot think of others. Each of us lives and dies alone. You cannot help [your old father] anymore. And you are hurting yourself. In fact, you should be getting his rations'' (p.80) A fellow prisoner points out how everyone fends for themselves in these camps. People survive off of grit and selfishness instead of kindness and sympathy. But even when understanding that the prisoner is right, Elie continues to help his father because he understands how much family matters. As proof that Elie has to work harder for the both of them, Elie looks after his father while he is incredibly sick despite enduring these brutal labor conditions. “father! I've been looking for you for so long…How do you feel?” he was burning with fever. I cleared away for myself to the coffee caldron. I had a sip. The rest was for him. I can't forget the light of thankfulness in his cuss while he gulped it down... With those few gulps of hot water. I probably brought him more satisfaction than I had done during my whole childhood.” (p.77) This quote explains how sensitive Elie is with his father; How much he cares for and looks after his father. How much he checks on his father's health and remains kind to …show more content…
His father plays a vital role in his life, not only because of his paternal image but also because he is the only family member Elie had left.“I tightened my grip on my father's hand. The old, familiar fear: not to lose him…I could have screamed in anger. To have lived and endured so much; was I going to let my father die now? I knew that I was no longer arguing with him but with Death itself, with Death that he had already chosen.” (p.76-77) Elie still makes an effort to hold on to his father as a sign of dedication and love. Despite everything they have gone through, losing his father is still his greatest fear. In an effort to avoid losing the last survivor of his family and the only thing keeping his own will to live, he fights to keep his father alive as he slowly dies. Another example of his father's impact, is when Elie suffers the loss of his father and undergoes a series of emotional damage. “it no longer mattered. After my father's death, nothing could touch me anymore.. I spent my days in a state of idleness. And I had but one desire to eat. I no longer thought of my father or my mother” (p. 82) in this quote Elie Weisel paints a vivid image after his father's death. Elie is portrayed with a relentless, lost emotion. Elie talks about the numbness he feels without his father, the only person he trusted. Having his father with him during these trying times at the
When Elie was separated from his mother and sister at the beginning of the book Elie was only left with his father. When things got tough, they continued pushing for each other. They made sacrifices for each other and always made sure the other was ok. Elie had lost the rest of his family so his father meant the world to him. At the end of the book this is also taken away from him.
Have you ever cared for someone so much, that you forgot about your own health and safety, so you could focus on theirs? Elie Wiesel tells his story about his time in a concentration camp during World War Two in his very own book, Night. He was only 13 years old in the comfort of his home in Sighet, Transylvania, until the Nazis invaded and began tearing his life apart. Once Elie and his father get to Auschwitz, you'll see Elie's survival chances fall, due to carrying his fathers weight, only dragging him further down.
Elie and himself are becoming more apart as a result of his lack of involvement. Because Elie's father never engages with him, their relationship suffers and they are not exceptionally close. In conclusion, their distant relationship is caused by Elie’s father not spending enough time with
To Elie, his father is his only source of moral support, motivation, and trust. Until the very end, the kinship between Elie and his father allows them to stand strong together in all circumstances. As a result, familial ties are essential for Elie
And deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last!...” Furthermore Elie tells us that he wants to feel remorse for his fathers death but in the long run there is no remorse because after him depending on his father taught him that when it gets rough you tend to have an emotional detachment, and this led to Elie having an emotional
Elie protects and helps his father as well as he does not sacrifice him for his own survival as so many sons have done to their fathers. However as days pass by, he starts to feel some resentment toward his father especially when he is unable to protect himself from the bestiality of the SS instead of pitying him. In addition to that, toward the end of their way to Buchenwald his father becomes weak and cannot move, maybe because of fatigue or loss of hope. He leaves his father and sleeps deeply, when he wakes up, he could not find him and searches for him half-heartedly because a thought tells him maybe he could increase his chance of survival if he was alone. Fortunately, he finds him, ”Father!
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,
It was only a fraction of a second, but it left me feeling guilty” (111). Elie starts to hope his father dies so he can focus on himself and not have to deal with the old man who was getting abused and was too weak to do
This puts a big strain on their relationship. Elie is forced to take care of his father and make sure his dad is taken care of enough to survive. Elie gets very frustrated with his father for not being able to take care of himself. At one point, Elie even thinks about leaving his father behind to save himself. In this quote, "I could have screamed in anger.
Elie is depending on his father to keep him safe from an unfamiliar place that evokes the only piece of familiarity he has- his father. (transition) “I took a half a step forward. I wanted to see first where they were sending my father. If he went to the right, I would go after him” (Wiesel
Elie begins to think about what would happen if his father died. He realizes that if he no longer had to look after his father he could focus more on his own survival. Afterward he instantly, “felt ashamed, ashamed of myself forever” (Wiesel 106). In the following days, his father's health deteriorated further. Elie describes his state by using soul-crushing imagery, comparing him to a, “wounded animal” (Wiesel 106).
The heart wrenching and powerful memoir “Night” by Elie Wiesel depicts Elie’s struggle through the holocaust. It shows the challenges and struggles Elie and people like him faced during this mournful time, the dehumanization; being forced out of their homes, their towns and sent to nazi concentration camps, being stripped of their belongings and valuables, being forced to endure and witness the horrific events during one of history’s most ghastly tales. In “Night” Elie does not only endure a physical journey but also a spiritual journey as well, this makes him question his determination, faith and strength. This spiritual journey is a journey of self discovery and is shown through Elie’s struggle with himself and his beliefs, his 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.
After Elie’s father dies, Elie is a little bit glad because the responsibility is off him, “And deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last!?” Elie will certainly miss his father because they were very close. Yet part of Elie is glad to have the stress and responsibility off him. Elie is a little bit selfish in this, that he does not care that his father is dead, but he is a little bit relieved. Elie has lost his integrity, he is glad he has to take care of one