Night Themes/Main Ideas

Faith in God

At the beginning of Night, Eliezer’s faith in God is complete. His faith is the result of his studies in Jewish mysticism, which teaches him that God is everywhere in the world, that nothing exists without Him, that He is omnipotent and benevolent. However, this belief sees a tectonic shift during his days in the concentration camp. The horrible environment of the camp, the deaths of Jews, the burning crematoria, the murder of children, the breakdown of familial relationships, all for no reason apart from the fact that they are Jews, shake his belief where at the end of it, God is dead, hanging from the gallows, like the child who was hanged by the Nazis. The fundamental struggle with faith is, if God is benevolent and omnipotent, how can such evil and depravity be permitted? If the Jews could have united and resisted the Nazis, Eliezer could have still believed that mankind is essentially good. But as his experience shows, not only the Nazis but even the inmates turn on each other selfishly. The death of God is an existential struggle which all the Jews are confronted with.

However, even when Eliezer states that he has given up on God, Wiesel’s constant use of religious metaphors undercuts what Eliezer says he believes. He refers to biblical passages when he denies his faith. He prays to God when he fears that he might abandon his father. Similarly, he regrets that there is no religious memorial for his father after his death. Throughout Night, Eliezer had questioned his faith and the existence of God. However, it is this questioning that underlines that he is still looking for answers within his faith, still trying to verify the existence of God. In other words, questioning is fundamental to finding God.

Silence

When God doesn’t intervene to stop the atrocities, He is silent. So is the world. So is America. Eliezer and the other prisoners pray to God for his help. But as Eliezer says, “The Eternal … was silent. What had I to thank Him for?” While in the story of Isaac, God demanded sacrifice but ultimately intervened and saved Isaac’s life, in the camp, there is no swooping in, no divine intervention, just an absolute silence where only the Jews cry and writhe in pain.

The Threat to Familial Relationships

Family is the singularly most important network of relationships in modern society. At the beginning of Night, the reader is acquainted with the Wiesel family—parents, two daughters, and a son. This is an ideal family with a benevolent father. Disaster strikes with the Nazis approaching, and suddenly this idyll is under threat. Mrs Wiesel and Tzipora disappear early on, and Eliezer now only has his father. Throughout the story, we see how they cling on to each other desperately—for support, for the zeal to live, to have one remaining family. Eliezer depends on his father, and it is his love for him that forces him to endure. As he says, “My father’s presence was the only thing that stopped me [from allowing myself to die]…. I had no right to let myself die. What would he do without me? I was his only support.” This relationship demonstrates that Eliezer’s love and solidarity are stronger reasons for survival than his instinct for self-preservation.

However, the Nazi brutality is so efficient that it systematically breaks down every single familial relationship, where a son even turns on his own father as in the instances of Rabbi Eliahou’s son and the nameless son who beats his father for a piece of bread. Even Eliezer often considers his father a burden, a feeling he is immediately ashamed of. In the world of the concentration camp, the inmates are not humans anymore; they are just beasts, without any individual personality or history, deprived of all their past and their affections. There is no family, no love, no hope in this cold, hostile environment, and as a beast, one can only look for food and think of oneself.