Elie Wiesel Chapter 6 Analysis

At the beginning of the book, Elie is very passionate about religion, but at this part of the book he's questioning his faith because of the

While also making him cold, and almost unsympathetic. Elie was a smart and very religious boy. He believed God was the one thing he could count on. But soon he became a god-fearing man, who could not understand why something of such horror would happen to such an innocent family. In the beginning of the novel, the author

Elie didn’t see a life without God, to him it was unimaginable. About a year later, the Germans had invaded Transylvania and were currently moving Elie and his fellow Jews into concentration camps. While leaving the haven of his home town, Elie prayed to God, on page 20, he says, “Oh God, Master of the Universe, in your infinite compassion have mercy on us…”. After they arrived at the camp, Ellie was ripped away from the innocence that he and God walked together in. When the Jews arrived at the concentration camp, humanity seemed to slip right out of grasp, opposed to when they first arrived at the camp.

During Elie’s time in the concentration camp, he battled with believing and not believing in faith. For example, when Elie starts to see the negative experience that goes on in the camp, he starts to lose faith in God, therefore he begins to question God actions. For instance, he wants to know why God was letting bad things happen to some of the prisoners, or were they supposed to learn from this experience. Another thing is that, when they arrived at the camp Elie “say’s never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp that turned my life into one long night” (Night pg. 34).

(Wiesel 4) Elie has asked his father to learn more about his religion, as he desired to increase his devotion. He was motivated, and his devotion was strong, before his capture. “We believed in God, trusted in man, and lived with the illusion that every one of us has been entrusted with a sacred spark from the Shekhinah's flame; that every one of us carries in his eyes and in his soul a reflection of God's image,”(Wiesel 14) Ellie explains how he still felt Gods presence while entering the camps. Even when he first faced the reality of what was happening, he still believed that God was in control and was still a part of him.

When the inmates started praying his name, he thought to himself, why would they pray to him? They shouldn’t be praying his name after what they had witnessed and he didn’t do anything about it. Elie was furious that God would ever let anything like this happen to anyone. It is evident that Elie lost all faith in

After a hard day at camp Elie is lying in his bunk when the other prisoners start to sing. He questions why they are singing praise to God while they are being tortured because of him. Elie also wonders why God doesn't come and help them. He tells us " I was not denying his existence but I doubted his absolute justice."

At one point, Elie uttered, "Oh God, Master of the Universe, in your infinite compassion, have mercy on us. . .”(p.20). Grounded by the idea of faith in his God, that He is everywhere, and that His divinity touches every aspect of his life. However, he was forced to witness the brutal reality of evil and suffering that the Germans were doing to the Jews. When he began to question his faith in his loving God, “Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes”(p.34).

By the last section of the novel, Elie no longer mentions God and he does not pray for his father when he dies, demonstrating Elie’s complete change in faith, a component of his life that was once very important to him. Furthermore, at the start of his concentration camp experience, Elie is extremely close with his father, and their survival relies on each other. However, when

(Ilibagiza 78). Elie also believes in God, but as time goes on he starts to believe that he is not in God’s favor. He is constantly rejected by hope and thinks he, being a Jew, is brought to camps to die. The main focus for the prisoners is that they survive. “In this place, it’s every man for himself” (Wiesel 10).

The men, women, and children in Auschwitz tried to find some peace by believing that God would have their backs, even if it meant enduring this hardship. Personally, I know what it is like to have a wavering faith in my relationship with God. It can be really hard to thank him and rejoice in him when I am going through a tumultuous time. It's easy to go to God and worship him when life is easy, the real test of faith is going to him when you're faced with tragedy. During Covid, I found myself becoming depressed and questioning why God was putting me through the ringer.

“I no longer accepted God’s silence. As I swallowed my ration of soup, I turned that act into a symbol of rebellion, of protest against Him.” (Page 69) This means that Elie is irritated of God not doing anything

The torturing and suffering caused is what widdles down the belief, and this present throughout the novel. Only the strong and the ones who have most faith would survive, yet at the same time, if they didn’t originally have faith, they could’ve avoided the concentration camps

and it changed him. In the book, Night, the main theme, is religion and belief which is shown when Elie talks about the his strong religion and belief as a boy, his disconnection from religion, and the inhumane actions the Nazi 's caused. Having such a strong belief in something and then dramatically changing how you think, is a very significant event. During this time, many people questioned where God truly was. Even Elie was questioning where God was.

“What was there to thank [God] for?” (Wiesel 33). After just a few minutes of being placed into a concentration camp he was doubting God's existence. He was wondering how something so horrible could happen to him while he had been completely faithful and pure his whole life. At the same time he did not want to believe that God would have created something so terrible.