First Body Paragraph: Stripped from Their Identity One’s name, address, age, gender and other qualities are what makes one different from another, but when that is taken away from them and it is replaced with a code or number, what value does that person have over another? In the memoir, the protagonist, Elie is stripped from his own identity and his identification is replaced with the code A-7713. At this time in history, the Jews were considered inferior races, and their existence was almost “allergic” to the Germans. When the block secretary summoned Elie after returning from the warehouse to get his gold tooth extracted, he was referred by his new signature. “‘A-7713?’ ‘That’s me’” (Wiesel 51). The book had reached a point in the plot …show more content…
But taking away one of man’s most important needs: food and water, is not going to make one last too long. Poor nutrition is one of the main causes for death around the world and this was demonstrated in various situations in the memoir. Not just the protagonists but all the characters in the story were given very little food, thus decreasing their energy and making them very weak. In the beginning of the story, people thought they could handle this injustice but as the story goes on, the situation becomes too heavy for Jews to handle and they start to kill their own kind as they are desperate even to get a little crumb of bread. “Some workers amuse themselves by throwing pieces of bread into the open wagons and watching the starved men kill each other for a crumb” (Wiesel 59). This sort of inhumanity is not just cruel but something that the Jewish people cannot help to fix because the fault is not amongst them, it is the situation that makes them helpless to do it and the current situation of war and discrimination. Elie is enraged when he realizes that sons betray their fathers for food and does not feel that even helpless situations should result in deaths of their dear ones. He fails to understand at times that many sons feel that their fathers are huge weights on their backs that they can only hold for a little while but not for long and he strives to rebel against that and protect his father to his full potential. Another example is when Elie is struggling to find food for himself and his father and is desperate that he relies on the scrap potato peels and grass to relieve from hunger. “We were tormented with hunger. We had eaten nothing for six days, except a bit of grass or some potato peelings found near the kitchen” (Wiesel 63). When one is hungry they would eat anything, they can find to relieve themselves from the hunger feeling, but food is something
In an analysis of the book Night it is stated, “ These prisoners have lost their human identity, they are mere creatures, all dressed alike in similar, strange clothing.” Elie and the other Jewish people lost their identity by losing their possessions, family, and who they were. The first thing the Germans took from the Jewish people was all their possessions. In the book one of the German officers told them, “‘Anyone who still owns gold, silver, or watches must hand them over now’” (Wiesel 24)
This is the first time the book shows Elie being called by his number. After actually being called this number it's
Mr.Wiesel wanted to survive the Holocaust with his family, but they were separated and he was luckily left with Elie and they stayed alive for a long time during the Holocaust, so through the years Mr.Wiesel survived a long time for the reason of his son and wanting to survive the genocide with his family, then they went through some life threatening events but they were still fighting to survive. The author wrote and stated “My father swallowed my ration” (Wiesel 50). Based on this, I can infer that Elie was helping Mr.Wiesel build up strength by feeding him his ration, also wanted his father to eat his rations for the sake of not wanting to lose his father. In the same way, Mr.Wiesel would have done the same thing and fed Elie his rations.
As a result of a constant exposure to brutality, Elie nearly forgets the existence of a standard of humanity, since even the smallest acts of kindness are”judged too humane” (44). As Elie’s situation disintegrates from the stable Sighet to the Nazi concentration camp, he develops
Anyone can be overcome by selfishness in order to survive the hardest of times. In Elie Wiesel’s “Night”, the main character Elie faces many hard times that puts both survival and loyalties into perspective. In horrific conditions, the necessity to survive can overpower the strongest of human loyalties. First off, people tend to prioritize their own safety over the safety of others. Secondly, prisoners abandon their communities for a position of authority in order to survive.
In Sighet, Elie lives a healthy life and never has to worry about a shortage of food or medicine. But once he is captured by the Nazis, his life begins to change. Elie’s captors give him rations of bread and soup each day, but these portions are very small and are barely enough to keep a human being alive. Soon, the only thing Elie can think about is his hunger, which is illustrated in the following text excerpt: “I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach.
Family; a blessing, or a curse? In the book Night, Elie Wiesel offers many significant themes, but the question, “is family a blessing or a curse,” is one of the most prevalent and begging themes in the novel. During the novel, Wiesel often questions if he should try and keep his father around, or if life would just be better without him in the picture. “‘Don’t let me find him! If only I could get rid of this dead weight, so that I could use all my strength to struggle for my own survival, and only worry about myself,’ I immediately felt ashamed of myself, ashamed forever,” (Wiesel, 111).
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 “. . .
Thus, Wiesel’s identity changed drastically throughout the progression of the
Imagine being a young 15 year old boy barely fed, dehydrated and at a camp that was created for the purpose of killing thousands of people and immediately once you arrive losing your mother and sister. Elie shows extreme mental strength during this event, rather than trying to stop it from happening
The Holocaust was one of the most tragic events in history. It just so happened to be the cause of six million deaths. While there are countless beings who experienced such trauma, it is impossible to hear everyone's side of the story. However, one man, in particular, allowed himself to speak of the tragedies. Elie Wiesel addressed the transformation he underwent during the Holocaust in his memoir, Night.
Throughout this novella, the denied ability to have an exclusive title other than just a number, the critical circumstances of the feared concentration camp Auschwitz, and the disability to obtain a soul, all contribute to Elie’s incredulity towards his faith. Family titles and names are a prodigious gift from God. To acquire a name means that there is an importance for the individual’s life. Without names, an individual has no meaning and no worth. The SS men have replaced their captives original names for irrelevant numbers as shown in the following quote, “I became A-7713.
Breaking The Chains Of Conformity With Courage Courage is similar to being the ripened fruit on a barren tree, it gives life and color to a dull exterior. The courage that others display gives our nation determination for another day. Courage is the ability to prevail through hardships, to reveal your true inner nature, and to stand up for what you believe, when the rest of the world falls as a slave to conformity. Hardships are lurking around every corner of our life ready to immerse whenever we least expect them.
Bread in Night Bread, you may not think of it, but in the book Night, it becomes crucial through the events. In Night, the word “bread” was used multiple times throughout the book. Now bread is just food, but sometimes, depending on people’s hierarchy of needs, it can be more than food. Bread can be food, a luxury, it can represent normality, friends and family together.
Suffering not only forces people to make inhumane decisions but it also causes people to lose hope and give up on themselves. In this section of the book, Elie describes a time where he was devastated to see his father beaten and hurt in the camps. Throughout his time in the camps, Elie saw and heard the abuse that was given to people in the camp killing his hope. The biggest turning point in the story was when he saw his father getting beat. When Idek “began beating [Elie’s father] with an iron bar … [Elie’s] father simply doubled over under the blows, but then [Elie's father] seemed to break in two like an old tree struck by lightning”