In Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie changes in many profound ways. He had taken in things he witnessed, heard, emotions and perspectives which all shaped him into the person he became after the Holocaust. Eliezer Wiesel is a fourteen-year-old boy living in Sighet, Transylvania during the beginning of World War II. He is a pious boy and wants to study deeper into his religion and read the Talmud. His father, who is an unsentimental man and leader of the Jewish community, believes that he is too young. Out of the many ways that Elie changes, when he survived this historic event, by then he had become a completely different person. He withdrew himself from being pious and hopeful to unfaithful, considerate to selfish and grudgeful and significantly …show more content…
He began by devoting his life to others, mainly his family. However, his experiences caused him to become more selfish and grudgeful. For example, Idek, the kapo in charge of Buna, is known for his unexpected wraths. There was an event where Idek approaches Elie’s father, Shlomo and Elie is a bystander during this situation. He clearly states that the camps have changed him in the sense that after Shlomo received a few blows, Elie held a grudge towards his father rather than Idek. This foreshadowed an even bigger change in Elie’s father in the book. “What’s more, if I felt anger at that moment, it was not directed at the Kapo but at my father. Why couldn’t he have avoided Idek’s wrath? That was what life in a concentration camp had made of me...” (Wiesel 54). Elie knows who had fault in this change of character, if it had to be anything, anyone, it has to be the camp itself. As Elie is slowly becoming less and less humane, his father's strength is lessening also. After the death march where prisoners are forced to WALK 85 miles to the camp in Gleiwitz. During this they are tortured and left to die along the way. This had consisted of many losing their strength along with their lives because of how they were treated by those who had authority. Elie is resisting the urge to do more for himself and less for his father because of his father's state in health. “They didn't give us anything... They said …show more content…
Being consumed by all that he was enduring in the camps resulted in him being just numbers that were tattooed onto him: A-7713, his new identity; just like for everyone else. Being a prisoner had caused the importance and ranking of individuals in communities to die. “I became A-771. From then on, I had no other name” (Wiesel 42). Prisoners were no longer themselves but instead known for a set of numbers tattooed on their arm. This became THEM. They were nobodies. Following this, the prisoners and their general mental states went left, but Elie acknowledges his change. “I too had become a different person. The student of Talmud, the child I was, had been consumed by the flames. All that was left was a shape that resembled me. My soul had been invaded – and devoured – by a black flame” (Wiesel 37). His humanity was changing due to him taking in so much and releasing so little. Not only is their race being annihilated but their original lives, physical appearance, families and their identification are also being wiped away. Lastly, when Elie had been released from the concentration camp and resulted to being in a hospital when he became ill, he sees a mirror on the opposite wall from where he is. Once he was able to get up, he looked at himself and stated: "From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me ” (Wiesel 115). With this quote all
The one person in Elie’s life that means everything to him is his father. During his time in the concentration camps, Elie’s bond with his father
For example he was questioning his belief, will to live, and if his father was worth sticking with. The text states “Don’t forget that you are in a concentration camp. In this place, it is every man for himself and you cannot think of others. Not even your father” (Wiesel 110). This quote shows that it doesn't matter if it is your father, so Elie should only care for himself. This impacts Elie because he loves his father, you should love your father. For many people to tell him to abandon his father and just not stick with him it can really break down someone emotionally especially if they have been there since the day you were born,and Elie loves his father. They have been through a lot ever since they have been in the concentration
Stated in the book, “ How could I say to him: Blessed be thou, Almighty, Master of the universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night” ( page 67). All the Jews in the concentration camps questioned why their savior was letting this happen and not helping them and Elie was one of those Jews. Without having much insight of what was to come of their lively hoods Elie and rest of the Jews pushed through tough conditions, Elie states, “ It’s over, god is no longer with us” (page 76). After time Elie and other Jews started believe that their was no God, and they should accept their fate. Elie’s will power decreased throughout the book, after understanding everyday was a fight for his life. When something is desperately wanted it is fought for, easier said than done when surviving the conditions Elie lived in: scarce food, bad weather, and poor sheltering, In the words of Elie, “I’ll run into the electrified barbed wire, that would be easier then a slow death in flames”(page 33). He wanted to give up once finding out his fate to be. At the time he thought why should he sit
In the beginning of the book he wasn't that close with his father but later he didn't want to be separated with his father. When Elie and his father are transporting to another camp, his father grows week, SS officer's are throwing the dead Jews out the cattle carts, Elie's dad is delirious and asleep. The SS officers think he is dead. “Father! Father! Wake up! There going to throw you out side…”(Wiesel 99). Elie is doing everything in his power from losing his father. This shows that he cares about his father and he has become closer to his
Before Elie went to the concentration camp, Auschwitz, he had many character traits such as innocents , fearful, and unknowing. Elie wrote in the book ¨Night¨ on page (xix), ¨I shall never forget that night the first night at camp...¨ Elie was very afraid as soon as he got to the camp. He didn't know what was in store for him and didn't understand what was going on. His innocents showed threw making it easy to see he didn't know
Character Analysis of Elie Wiesel Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night talks about his horrific experiences and memories while in the Holocaust between 1941-1945. While in Sighet, Elie is very focused on his religious beliefs. His mentor for the Talmud, Moshe the Beadle, comes back from a near death experience. He warns the Jewish people that the Nazis are going to come and harm them, but no one listens.
As the holocaust went on he started to get skinnier than he was before; “ I was a body. Perhaps even less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time” (Wiesel 50). Elie also had pus in his foot after walking bare feet to his concentration camp in the snow. This shows how the nazi’s did not care about anything that happened to their prisoners.
In the beginning of Night we see a young, innocent thirteen year old and deeply observant Wiesel, who wants to get closer to God and devotes his time studying Talmud by day, and at night the kabbalah with his friend and also mentor Moshie the Beatle. When Wiesel enters the Auschwitz concentration camp, his childhood and innocence are shattered when he witnesses men, women, and children being dumped into fiery graves. Throughout Night Elie Wiesel’s view about humanity and God changes, Wiesel starts to lose faith in God and question his existence, his view of humanity also changes when he sees how the exposure of human cruelty can deprive humans of their sense of morality and humanity.
The holocaust caused the death of millions of people. It has shaped our history and our world. Elie Wiesel’s Night tells the story of the Holocaust through his perspective. He goes through his life as a child trapped in the terrors of war and describes the life long changes of his physical, spiritual, and emotional state. During his journey he has lost his once strong belief in god and hope for his father. Tragedy can have both its vices and its virtues and they shape us. Elie Wiesel changed dramatically throughout his horrific experience.
In the novel, Night, Elie features an array of questions that cannot be easily answered, while setting up the stage for disagreements and tensions. In order, to provide a deeper insight into the question, similar to the question of whether a person has the power to retain their humanity in the face of persecution. To further explain, there are two sides to this question, resulting in a tension. This tension, as Elie intended, will provide a deeper insight into the question. For this purpose, as arguments arise on whether a person can or cannot retain their humanity in the face of persecution, it provides an answer to one of life’s most essential questions.
In life, people go through different changes when put through difficult experiences. In the book Night, Elie Wiesel is a young Jewish boy whose family is sent to a concentration camp by Nazis. The story focuses on his experiences and trials through the camp. Elie physically becomes more dehumanized and skeletal, mentally changes his perspective on religion, and socially becomes more selfish and detached, causing him to lose many parts of his character and adding to the overall theme of loss in Night.
Abstract: This study was carried out in order to investigate whether black tea has antimicrobial properties as stated in Steven Johnson’s The Ghost Map. If tea does have antimicrobial properties, then it could aid in warding off waterborne diseases. We believed that if black tea is steeped in boiled water, then the amount of bacteria exposed to this solution would decrease. We expected to see no difference in the amount of bacteria exposed to the black tea solution. Tannic acid, black tea, boiled water, and a tetracycline antibiotic were tested for their zones of inhibition in order
After 3 weeks at Auschwitz, they get deported to Buna, which is a turning point for the relationship between Elie and Chlomo. The camps influence Elie and give him a crooked mind focused on staying alive and nothing else. This leads to him disregarding his father. This twisted way of thinking, due to the camps, is making Elie cheer during bomb raids at Buna. He states his thoughts “But we were no longer afraid of death, at any rate, not of that death” (57). This shows that he is willing to die to see the camps destroyed. The most horrifying event that demonstrates his twisted mind is when Eliezer pays no heed to his father while he was being repeatedly beat with an iron bar. Eliezer, rather than acting indifferent and showing nothing, actually feels angry with his father. “I was angry at him for not knowing how to avoid Idek’s outbreak” (52). The new lifestyle of the camps affected Elie and his relationship with his father for the worse.
Night tells the story of a young boy, Eliezer Wiesel, and his struggles to survive during the Holocaust. Becoming a victim of various Nazi German concentration camps at the young age of fifteen, Elie finds himself separated from his mom and sisters, never to see them again. Therefore, he solely remains with and relies on his father. Together they are stripped, sanitized and treated with inhumane cruelty, along with millions of other innocent victims. Despite their strong bond and
Over population is an issue that plagues people all over the world. American’s specifically are headed towards a population of over 400 people by 2050. High population numbers like these can lead to an abundance of environmental issues. One of these issues specifically is air pollution. Air pollution is primarily the cause of industrialization and releasing toxic fumes into the atmosphere. This causes the ozone levels to rise to unhealthy conditions. If countries like the U.S don’t become active in preventing these environmental issues, overpopulation would just continue to increase them. This would affect American citizens because environmental issues, like air pollution, caused by over population will have a negative effect on the quality of life and the ability to breathe clean air.