NIGHT
Elie Wiesel
Hundreds of bodies being thrown like a sack of potatoes and nobody caring about who they might be or who their family is. Father and sons wouldn't even look at each other, some even killed one another for food or they are delusional. That was the Holocaust, over 1 million jews killed. In the book Night by Elie Wiesel. Elie wrote his life story by using symbolism, tone, and irony to explain and tell the readers about his traumatic memories of his teen years. Elie and his father had a good father and son relationship. Their relationship had little things that Elie would do for his father and his father doing the same for him,compassion, and fright that made them become closer to each other. It was the little things like questions,looks, and teaching something to one another.
After the selection Elie and his dad met up halfway to the barracks and asked each other if they made the selection. “
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“‘My son,they are beating me!’ ‘Who?’ ‘him,the frenchman.. And the pole..they beat me…’ one more stab to the heart,one more reason to hate.one less reason to live.’Eliezer… Eliezer… tell them not to beat me… I havent done anything… Why are they beating me?’”(109).Elie began to insult his neighbors. They mocked him and all he got was laughed at. He later found out that they couldn't stand Mr.Wiesel because he was no longer stand to go outside to relieve himself. Elie wanted to wish his father a happy new year but was scared to do so. He no longer believed. All Elie did was go up to his father and kiss his and but felt a tear on his cheek either his or his fathers, it didn't matter to him. When idek was trying to get Elie’s gold crown but his father stopped him from doing so, even if it meant for Shlomo (Mr.Wiesel) took beating the beatings from Idek. Fright took over Elie's body during these years with his father his only family member that he knew was
Themes in a story help to describe what the book is about. It does this in the book Night by helping describe what World War 2 was like for the Jews. It also helps to see what the people in the camps went through. My two themes from night are imprisonment and survival. The first one I will talk about is imprisonment, then i’ll talk about survival.
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.
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.
The delusion that one day the Jewish people would know peace. As noted in the novel Night, Elie Wiesel the narrator describes the Holocaust. " Hunger-thirst-fear-transportation-selection-fire-chimney: these words all have intrinsic meaning, but in those times, they meant something else" (Wiesel ix). The novel Night gives the perspective of the Holocaust through a young man 's eyes.
He had been taken to the crematorium by the SS men while he was still breathing. Elie finding out about his death he feels relieved because he did not have to watch over anyone else but him from now on, he has absolutely no tears. Elie states “Free at last!...” (112), although, he was feeling guilty right after having those thoughts. It shows how close Elie and his father got that Elie fought for his father to stay alive for so long that he was tired of having the responsibility.
“Yes, you can lose somebody overnight, yes, your whole life can be turned upside down. Life is short. It can come and go like a feather in the wind. ”- Shania Twain.
World War II had been raging for two years and was bout to enter Sighet. The Germans attempted to commit genocide on the 'lesser ' races, particularly Jews. Through the brutality witnessed, acts of selfishness, the death of his father, and the loss of his faith, Elie changed. Elie became a young man with a strong sense of mortality through it all. By the end of the war, Elie claimed to see himself as "A corpse contemplating me."
Think of a circumstance where you were so hungry and thirsty, that you did not even care to think about your father anymore. That circumstance goes against common father-son relationships. The common father-son motif is where the father looks out and cares for the son. In the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel, he explains why the circumstances around a father-son relationship can change their relationship, whether it 's for the better or the worse. Since the book is about the life of Elie in a Nazi concentration camp, the circumstances were harsh and took a toll on multiple father-son relationships.
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.
“I ran off to look for my father. And at the same time I was afraid of having to wish him a Happy New Year when I no longer believed in it,” (Wiesel, 75). Earlier, Elie talks about how he felt powerful and stronger than God himself, now that he was free from the Almighty. He also talks about how he felt alone but strong. Later, he shows retaliation against God.
Shockingly, Elie and his family were ones to be put into a camp called Auschwitz. When they arrived at the camp, Elie and his dad got isolated from his mom and younger sibling, and from that point on he and his dad did not lose each other. In the book Night, Elie had a great deal of confidence, however as you see all through the story it gets harder for him to keep the confidence he
(Wiesel 82). Elie is heartbroken when this event occur because throughout the whole story Elie’s role model was his father and to see him get beaten made him lose hope. During their times in the camp the suffering laid upon on both Elie and his father made them give up on themselves and feel like they didn’t have a chance to make it out or survive. This was shown once again in depth when Elie said to himself, “Were there still miracles on this earth?” (Wiesel 76).
Night Critical Abdoul Bikienga Johann Schiller once said “It is not flesh and blood, but the heart which makes us fathers and sons”. But what happens when the night darkens our hearts our hearts? The Holocaust memoir Night does a phenomenal job of portraying possibly the most horrifying outcomes in such a situation. Through subtle and effective language, Wiesel is able to put into words the fearsome experiences he and his father went through in Auschwitz during the Holocaust. In his holocaust memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel utilizes imagery to show the effect that self-preservation can have on father son relationships.