Night Elie Wiesel Analysis

“Free at last!” (Wiesel 112). “With the death of Eliezer's father, the spiraling down into the narrowing chasm is complete, and Eliezer is left “terribly alone in a world without God and without man.” The journey is at its end” (Estess). It is reveled in the book that after his father died. It is revealed that after his father died, Elie lost all connection with himself (Wiesel 113). “Throughout the book, though, whenever Eliezer questions his father or considers that he is becoming a burden, he eventually chastises himself, much as he does when he realizes that his father has finally died. Eliezer is not a rebellious teenager but, instead, one with a conscience” (Sanderson). He soon regrets this and feels guilty. “He has survived, but it is a survival he can no more come to terms with than the wholly meaningless deaths visited on his family and the millions of others”

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

Moreover, Elie left his father alone because he knew that once he died, Elie would be able to focus on his own survival in order to make it out of the camp. In Night, the author states, “‘In this place, it is every man for himself, and you cannot think of others. Not even your father, though. In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone.

In Night by Elie Weisel, his father fails to give an account of what he heard at the council meeting so therefore nobody knows what’s going on. Secondly, the sighet residents aren’t listening to Moishe the Beadle who has already experienced a concentration camp. All the Jews are relying on Elie’s Father to give them information because they think what Moishe said was false.Once everyone steps of the train, they find out that what Moishe said wasn’t false. It’s ironic that people believed Elie’s father instead of Moishe the Beadle because Elie’s father was a respected leader of the community and Moishe was not a prominent figure in the town of sighet.

As he writes on page 113, “Nothing mattered to me anymore,” in response to the death of his father. In the time after his father died, he didn’t really feel anything. All that mattered was eating and staying alive. He had no one else to think about after his father died other than himself, and nothing else to think about other than when his next meal was. Although what really showed the change in Elie was the way he felt about his father dying. At the beginning of the book Elie would do everything he could to stay with his father, stating, “All I could think of was not to lose him (his father),” (page 30), and by the end when his father died, on page 112 he exclaims, “Free at last!” The way his feelings changed from the beginning to the end prove how the way they were treated made them believe it was every man for themselves. In fact, Elie had at first been ready to defend and stand by his father in anything, but nearing the time of his father’s death had started thinking of being free of his father, and even using some of his father’s rations for himself. After his father died, he only thought of his next meal, and he only cared for himself in a way he never had

Elie’s thoughts and actions reflect his reliance on his father in the camp. When he is going through selection for a komodo, he begs, “I want to stay with my father” page 48.

As noted on page 111, “In fact, you should be getting his rations...too late to save your father...you could have two rations of bread, two rations of soup.” (Page 111) Here it is shown that Elie will receive his father’s rations, but in the beginning of the book he is always trying to help his father and keep him alive. Realizing that he can’t save his father, he begins to show that there is nothing else left for him to care for. Another example of his loss sympathy would be, “I shall not describe my life during that period it longer mattered.” (Page 113)The death of his father certainly changed they way he thought of his own life, and without his father he showed no more care for anything else. Not only does he lose his sympathy for others, but even his own life wasn’t worth caring

After losing his mother and sister in chapter three of Night, Elie says, “All I could think of was not to lose him [His father]” (30). This quote shows the importance of family because it say that the only thing that Elie could think about is not losing his father. “The baton pointed left. I took half a step forward. I first wanted to see where they would send my father. Were he to have gone to the right, I would have run after him” (32). This quote shows how much Elie’s father means to him. Knowing full well that he would get beat by a guard if he ran to his father, he would have just to be with him. Elie’s relative, Stein, shows how family is important to him by repeatedly saying, “The only thing that keeps me alive, is to know that Reizel and the little ones are still alive. Were it not for them, I would give up” (45). Overall, these three quotes show the importance of family to Elie, his father, and Stein, his

As Elie’s life continues he endures more tests that at his age majority of the people would not have experienced. Elie's father was suffering from dysentery and other maladies. On the night of January 28th in 1945, Elie goes to his bunk in exhaustion with his father still alive and in the bunk below him, “I had to go to sleep. I climbed into my bunk, above my father, who was still alive. The date was January 28, 1945”(112). In the morning, Elie wakes up to a new person in the bed where his father had laid. Elie realizes that he has no emotion left to show, especially not sympathy, “I

Both Elie and his father craved to put their bodies at ease, yet they both knew that sleeping meant never waking again and so Elie made a proposition, saying “We’ll take turns. I’ll watch over you and you’ll watch over me. We won’t let each other fall asleep. We’ll look after each other,” (89). Different from the other prisoners who followed the idea of “every man for himself”, Elie and his father had each other to count on. Throughout this whole journey, the relationship between the father and son appears to have made their bond stronger out of deepened love, along with their formidable situation and desperation to survive. Although their situation caused the push that made them closer and formed their mutual dependency, the appearance of the dependence on one another also strips the title of ‘hero’ from Elie’s father. Even though his father is the reason he fights to live, he is now an equal to him, where normally a dad, or hero, would be the to place their needs behind the other party. But, under their circumstances, they both equally need help and support from the

Elie went behind a building because he heard a sound coming from there. When Elie got behind the building he saw that Idek was with a polish girl. The polish girl didn't have a top on. Idek punished Elie for leaving his work, but the real reason why he punished him was because Elie saw him with the polish girl. “I was thinking of my father. He would be suffering more than I” (Wiesel 58). Elie just gotten whipped by Idek so he could keep his mouth shut about what he saw. When Elie was in so much pain that he couldn’t even open his eyes, he wasn't thinking about himself he was wondered about how his father was feeling. Even when he’s in so much pain he care about his father. In my opinion I believe that Elie used all his strength to get better and survive for his father. “I said nothing. Nor did he. Never before had we understood each other so clearly” (Wiesel 68-69). Elie and his father have a bond together that on the day of New Years, when Elie went to see his father before going to sleep they both knew what each other were feeling. When Elie got to his father he got his hand and kissed it. Elie felt a tear on his hand, he didn't know if it was his or his father’s but it didn't matter as long as they were

The memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, tells the story of a young boy surviving through the Holocaust. The story conveys the effects of this barbaric event on the boy emotionally, physically, and mentally. This crude, genocidal imperial impacted millions of people. This story focuses mainly on Elie Wiesel's perspective on the Holocaust; considering his many years of labor, servitude, and transportation through multiple concentration camps. At such a young age, he was put through torturous anguish. Throughout this story, he explains the effect of the Holocaust on him as a boy along with how he handled it.

When Elie and his father first entered the camps, his father was struck and Elie did nothing to help his father: "What had happened to me? My father had just been struck, in front of me, and I had not even blinked. Only yesterday, I would have dug my nails in this criminal's flesh" (39). This shows that, although Elie did not share a close relationship with his father, he still feels that he should stand up for his fahter for the fact that they are father and son. Elie is very violent in that he would have "dug his nails in the criminals' flesh." Evidently, Elie is furious towards the offender. Unfortunately, Elie does not do anything when his father is struck because he does not want to draw attention to himself. Nevertheless, the bond between Elie and his father does strengthen: "And what if he were dead, as well? He was not moving. Suddenly the evidence overwhelmed me: there is no longer any reason to live, any reason to fight" (98-99). Elie reveals that he truly depends on his father for survival. Because he believes his father is no longer alive, he loses all hope for surviavl. Although Elie expresses anger towards his father from time to time because he is being a burden, he still feels that his survival is meaningless without his father. The strong bond that the two developed once they entered the concentration camps proves that nothing can come between them so easily.

Dementia and physical illness rendered him too weak to rely on, so rather than asking how Elie would live without his father, a new question was presented: How would his father live without Elie? Immediately after arriving to a liberation camp, the surviving prisoners were divided into various groups, so Elie grabbed his father’s hand and refused to let go. Unfortunately, exposure to such unforgiving environments had introduced Elie’s father to the kind of seductive release from pain mentioned earlier. This was confirmed through an argument the two had where Elie refused to let his father sleep, knowing quite well he wouldn’t wake up. However, the latter was obstinate, begging to rest because he was so unbearably weak. The one-sided quarrel caused Elie to admit, “I knew that I was no longer arguing with him but with Death itself, with Death that he had already chosen” (105). Elie had previously demonstrated the strength to fight for his life, because that was what survival was, a fight. However, his father was not as fortunate, and didn’t possess the same willpower as his

While his father is dying in his bed, Elie decides to give him his own ration of bread of soup. However, after doing this a man in the camp says, “I’ll give you a sound piece of advice--don’t give your ration of bread and soup to your old father. There’s nothing you can do for him. And you’re killing yourself.” (pg. 115) . At this point in the book Elie himself realised that by helping and staying with his family made him go through much more hassle than what was necessary. After his dad passed Elie thought, “I might perhaps have found something like--free at last!” (pg. 116). He gathered that his father was keeping him from making the most of plight