Elie Wiesel is not only a talented author but a survivor of the holocaust who documented his horrific experiences in his memoir “Night”. In the beginning of the book Elie Wiesel was one of the most religious people in his town of Saghet who had a dream of living a monastic life. However, as a result of the harrowing injustices he endured he continuously lost faith in his religion. Within the book the reader is reminded again and again that when extreme adversity is experienced, faith is often lost. Night first documents loss of faith due to tragic experiences when Elie thinks, “For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. Why should I sanctify his name? the almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. …show more content…
Notably, when Elie thinks, “Why, but why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled. Because He caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves? Because He kept six crematoria working day and night, including Sabbath and the Holy Days? […] Praised be Thy Holy Name, for having chosen us to be slaughtered on Thine altar?” (67). Explicitly, Elie resents God for allowing him and his Jewish brothers and sisters to be tortured and murdered in gruesome and cruel ways. How could Elie possibly praise a God who condones the murder of children and mothers? He can’t which why he also says, “Some of the men spoke of God: His mysterious ways, the sins of the Jewish people, and the redemption to come. As for me, I had ceased to pray. I concurred with Job! I was not denying His existence, but I doubted His absolute justice” (45). Before his struggle, he was emotionally and spiritually connected to God and spent so much of his time studying the Jewish faith. In contrast, after he experienced living in a concentration camp he questioned God’s motives and no longer believed in absolute justice. He doesn’t believe in the same God he once did; before, he believed in a benevolent and kind father of humankind, he now can only believe in an apathetic and cold observer of the Jew’s
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.
The heart wrenching and powerful memoir “Night” by Elie Wiesel depicts Elie’s struggle through the holocaust. It shows the challenges and struggles Elie and people like him faced during this mournful time, the dehumanization; being forced out of their homes, their towns and sent to nazi concentration camps, being stripped of their belongings and valuables, being forced to endure and witness the horrific events during one of history’s most ghastly tales. In “Night” Elie does not only endure a physical journey but also a spiritual journey as well, this makes him question his determination, faith and strength. This spiritual journey is a journey of self discovery and is shown through Elie’s struggle with himself and his beliefs, his father
Elie continued to be angry at Him. Thousands of prisoners were repeating the prayer “Blessed be God’s name…” (Page 67). But Elie was concerned why should he bless Him? Everything inside Elie opposed it.
“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.
In the novel, “Night” Elie Wiesel communicates with the readers his thoughts and experiences during the Holocaust. Wiesel describes his fight for survival and journey questioning god’s justice, wanting an answer to why he would allow all these deaths to occur. His first time subjected into the concentration camp he felt fear, and was warned about the chimneys where the bodies were burned and turned into ashes. Despite being warned by an inmate about Auschwitz he stayed optimistic telling himself a human can’t possibly be that cruel to another human.
On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jews gathered in silence, worshiping God. Elie is in shock that they still praise Him despite the terrible things they have endeavored. He even goes into lengths to say, “Praised be Thy Holy Name, for having chosen us to be slaughtered on Thine altar? ,” (pg. 67) and he even begins to think about how man is truly greater than God, “And I, the former mystic, was thinking: Yes, man is stronger, greater than God.
Theme Analysis Essay: Having and Losing Faith In God Freedom of religion is a fundamental human right that protects all people. Religions faith can be tested under certain circumstances, which can falter the relationship one can have with their God. In the memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel, the author creates the universal theme that religious faith is questioned and challenged during traumatic events. Throughout the story, we see many relationships with God scarcely survive, and some completely fail entirely. For the duration of the memoir, Wiesel uses plenty of narrative elements to help convey this theme.
“You don’t understand... You cannot understand. I was saved miraculously. I succeeded in coming back. Where did I get my strength?
In the memoir Night, the narrator Elie Wiesel recounts a moment when he questioned God, ¨Blessed be God’s name? Why, but why would I bless him? Every fiber in me rebelled, he caused thousands of children to burn his Mass graves?¨(Wiesel 68). Overall, Wiesel does not follow the words of God and is not believing in him anymore because he thinks God is the one thatś letting all the inhumanity occur. One theme in Night is that inhumanity can cause disbelief or incredulity.
Imagine believing so strongly in something and then being let down, or thinking that you were wrong to believe. In Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie felt as though he had lost his religion and beliefs. “I believed profoundly. During the day I studied the Talmud, and at night I ran to the synagogue to weep of the destruction of the Temple,” (Wiesel, 14). This quote shows how strongly he believed before experiencing the hardships of the Holocaust
Elie, once so faithful, is one of the first to lose faith in God due to the horrific sights he sees. After witnessing the bodies of Jewish children being burned, Wiesel writes, “Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever” (34). He quite understandably has begun to doubt that his God is with him following the sight of the supposedly chosen people’s bodies being unceremoniously burned. Elie, though, was perhaps not a member of the masses with this belief; in fact, some men were able to hold on to their beliefs despite these horrendous sights. Also near the middle of the book, Wiesel reflects on the faith of other Jews in the face of these events, saying that “some of the men spoke of God: His mysterious ways, the sins of the Jewish people, and the redemption to come.
Religion is something that many people have consistently believed in and turned to in times of need and support. Some of these people rely on their faith more than their own family and friends. Their religion is their entire life and they can’t imagine their lives without it. Imagine a scenario that’s so terrible that God won’t take you out of it. These people will wonder where God is and pray for Him to come.
And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writing before our eyes. And we were forced to look at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still red, his eyes not yet extinguished.” This had reinforced Elie’s growing conviction that God was dead, that there was no purpose in praying to God or calling up God’s promises to His people because He had abandoned them.
Night is a memoir by Elie Weisel about his life and experiences during the Holocaust. The book starts by describing Elie and his family 's everyday life before laws that restricted the rights of Jews are created and they were moved to ghettos. Elie stayed in Auschwitz, then moved to Buchenwald. He lived in concentration camps from 1944, until April of 1945 when the Buchenwald was liberated. Throughout his experiences, and the memoir, Elie’s view of God changed and affected his identity.
As much as Jew’s wanted to speak for themselves, or even save others, this wasn’t possible due to their fear of winning them causing silence. In the Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, shows how Wiesel’s experience was during this harsh time in his life as a teenager. During this experience, Wiesel discovers how others, also including him, decided to remain silent as a result of their fear, causing some choices to be avoided and not made. To sum up, Wiesel’s experience portrays that fear always wins and causes others to be silent. Throughout this experience, Wiesel meets another person who is going through the same situation as him.