At the very beginning of Night, we do not see much of Elie and his father interacting, as Elie is always busy studying the Talmud and Kabbalah. His father seemed like a regular guy, until his family is moved out of the ghettos. After that, his father’s strength declines steadily through the book, and we watch as Elie struggles to stay with his father, his only link to his life of the past. The relationship between him and his father could not have developed the way it did if they had not gone through such horrible things side-by-side. When Elie’s community was moved to the ghettos, his father acted as a harbinger, passing on any news he could find, and keeping the crowd calm, “Sleep peacefully, children. Nothing will happen until the day after tomorrow, Tuesday” (Wiesel 18). The image of a proud leader that Elie had of his father is tainted when they began to march to the first camp, as his father began to cry. It is when he and his father are separated from his sisters and mother that Elie realized how essential his father is - if his father is gone, he has nothing. …show more content…
Their roles are beginning to switch at this point; Elie is seen as more of a leader figure, while his father stumbles behind him. Elie cared deeply about his father at this point in time, and he “...decided to give my father lessons in marching step, in keeping time. We began practicing in front of our block. I would command, ‘Left, right!’ and my father would try” (Wiesel 55). 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
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,
Elie and his father relationship changes as both of them go through more hardships. At the end Elie began to think that his father was sort of a burden and he feels guilty for thinking this of his father. Elie looks up to his father in the beginning of the book because his father is a respected member of the Jewish community. Elie’s father refused to be his mentor due to the fact that he did not agree with his decision to study mysticism.
What would he do without me? I was his sole support. ”(Wiesel 82). This quote supports this idea because it proves that Elie and his father Shlomo have become very dependent on each other, after their separation from the rest of the family. Elie recognizes that he is the only support left for his father.
In the beginning of the book, Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie was just a little boy deep into his religion. Reading the kabbalah and talmud and having his own guide to follow. He had a sister, mother and, father. Elie,his sister and, mother were close. Spending time and being together, on the other side with Elie’s father and himself they weren’t close.
Elie questioned and changed both relationships with his fathers when facing immense hardship. The difference between the deterioration
Night, by Elie Wiesel shows how traumatic events can bring families closer together through the character relationships of Elie and his father, as well as through the sinister setting of the concentration camps. The characters are the main way that Elie shows the development of a father-son relationship, however the shift in the relationship wouldn't be possible without the horrid setting that the characters had to live through. The characters in Night show how bad times can lead to a positive development in relationships. Before Elie and his father arrived at the camps, they had a strained relationship.
Night, a memoir by a survivor from the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel is about him in a little town of Transylvania in Sighet. Throughout the book, you learn what Elie did during his time in ghettos, concentration camps, and surviving. But, through most of this torment his father was right next to him. Although family relationship can keep a person alive, there are times when their relationship can be burdensome. Firstly, Stein maintaining hope being he believes his family is alive is a citation of keeping a person alive from family relationships.
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
In the book Night, we the readers witness the hardships and struggles in Elie’s life during the traumatic holocaust. The events that take place in this story are unbearable and are thought to be demented in modern times. In the beginning Elie is shown as a normal teenage Jewish boy, but the events are so drastic that we the readers forget how he was like in the beginning. Changes were made to Elie during the book, whether they were minor or major. The changes generated from himself, the journey, and other people.
It does not reflect a healthy connection between a father and a son. Elie even thinks that his father cares for other people more than his family. Their bond deepens after the two, along with many others, are sent to a concentration camp. The loss of the rest of their family members, leaving them just with each other, is what caused the shift. As they come to rely on one another for their own survival during the horrifying days and terrible treatment they endure at camp Auschwitz, they become closer.
The bond that Elie had with his father was his motivation to survive the torture he was put through. He spent his time in concentration camps focusing on keeping his father alive because if his father didn’t survive, “there was no longer any reason to live, any reason to fight” (99). Elie had no idea if his mother and sisters were still alive, and if he managed to survive the Holocaust, he needed his father to help him survive once they were liberated. He didn’t want to go into the world as an orphan, having witnessed and experienced horrors beyond imagination. Furthermore, he knew that if he focused on keeping his father alive, it would keep him alive too.
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!
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.