The Role Of Guilt In Night By Elie Wiesel

Although Elie did not want to hurt Stein’s feelings even more than they were already he should have not lied to him. Many people believe that lying is okay. Lying is never okay. It hurts the ones a person's loved one and can actually hurt the person’s health in ways too. The truth will eventually always come out; therefore, why lie about anything?

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.

Weeded from the Jewish ghettos located in Sighet, Romania in May of 1944, fifteen year-old Elie Wiesel is planted in the cold, yet flame filled, concentration camp known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, one out of Hitler's 40,000 incarnation camps. In Elie Wiesel's memoir Night, Wiesel shares his gruesome experiences in great detail in which he endured within the two-years he was a Jewish prisoner. Elie Wiesel is one out of the minority of Jews to survive the Holocaust whilst World War ll took place in Europe. Although Elie Wiesel is a known survivor of this great cataclysm on humanity, the remainder of his family was not as fortunate to share that title. The death of his family, along with the many other deaths and forms of torture that Wiesel witnessed,

A human is not capable of discerning the right from the wrong while going through an extreme struggle such as the Holocaust. Their sense of morality is overpowered by their need of survival. This is seen is Elie Wiesel’s book, “Night”. Wiesel states, “She received several blows to the head, blows that could have been lethal. Her son was clinging desperately to her, not uttering a word” (26).

Having been freshly dehumanized, a guard hit Elie’s father. What normally would have prompted a violent response from Elie to defend his family evoked nothing. Elie’s attachment to his father meant nothing in the face of dehumanization and deindividuation. This estrangement grows greater as they spend more time subjected the abuse of the camps. As his father gets beat while working in the camps, Elie remembers that “what's more, if I felt anger at that moment, it was not directed at the Kapo but at my father;” Elie asks “Why couldn't he have avoided Idek's wrath?

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

The prisoners seem to become cold-hearted and turn their backs towards each other; their only concern is survival. These horrid events in the multiple concentration camps and the inevitable deaths of many lead Elie to wonder how the world can hold so much grudge and fury, only to make matters worse, instead of making

They are unwillingly put in the way of harm when they are placed in these camps. Elie is seen facing numerous obstacles while trying to survive this horrific experience, but the violence he encounters is the biggest obstacle. He describes his Kapo, Idek, and how he often beats Jews for unknown reasons and how, “One day Idek was seized with one of his fits of frenzy, I got in his way. He leapt on me, like a wild animal, hitting me in the chest, on the head, throwing me down and pulling me up again, his blows growing more and more violent, until I was covered with blood," (50). It is exemplified how Elie and the prisoners face harsh abuse on a daily basis, causing them extreme pain and emotional damage.

Another example of this shown in his story is when his father is getting beaten and Elie feels mad at him instead of the officer beating him although the thought only lasted a moment. He shows this moment through his words when he says,“It was only a fraction of a second, but it left me feeling guilty”(pg111 Wiesel). Elie Wiesel's thoughts show how he has changed since the beginning, and how his identity is slowly fading in and out, which we see through his conflicted mindset of remorse. Elie’s identity was pushed even further as he experienced unjust and dehumanizing actions thrusted upon

”I did not weep and it pained me the i could not weep. But i was out of tears. And deep inside me, if i could i have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, i might have found something like: Free at last!... ” When his father died Elie wasn't sad all he could think of was the weight that was lifted off his chest, that he no longer had to be constantly worried or tending on his

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.

The cruelty of the German officers at the concentration camps change Elie’s personality throughout the novel. At the beginning of the novel, Elie is deeply religious and spends most of his time studying Judaism. However, by the end of the novel, Elie believes that God has been unjust to him and all the other Jews, and has lost most of his faith. The cruelty of the German officers also changed the other Jews as well. The events of the Holocaust forces the prisoners to fend for themselves, and not help others.

At the end of the book, Elie survives but lost many loved ones, including his father, and constantly mentions how he is "unworthy" to be alive, and how he feels like he doesn't deserve to live. Elie made this book to share his story as someone who had actually experienced the holocaust and has it as a core memory. “My father no longer felt the club’s blows; I did. And yet I did not react. I let the SS beat my father.

Elie Wiesel, the author of Night, describes the horrors of focusing on your own survival. Certain acts provoke inhumane acts throughout the ordeal. A central theme in Night is, even though it’s difficult, people should value compassion over their own survival. For instance, the evil of a lack of compassion affects thousands of prisoner lives.

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”