Representation Of Family In Night By Elie Wiesel

One internal conflict Elie experienced was the loss of all of his family. While he was in the concentration camps, he and his father were the only ones in his family that were left. “My hand tightened its grip on my father. All I could think of was not to lose him. Not to remain alone,” which was stated on page 30, explains how he and his father were all that were left and his father would have to be there for Elie during that time. They fought hard together through the cold nights

The Holocaust was a very terrible time in history over six million Jews perished in concentration camps. Even though in every tragedy there are survivors. Elie Wiesel was a little boy when all of this happened. He experienced all of the terrible things that happened during this time frame. While suffering in the terrible condition of the camp Elie and his father’s relationship goes through a drastic change.

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

“I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. But I was out of tears.” (112) Father son relationships can be very important, and can be put in danger in hard times. It is important to keep these close family relationships strong. Keeping family relationships close builds hope during tough times. Elie Wiesel uses the motif of father - son relationships throughout his book. Night, a memoir written by Elie Wiesel, is about his time in a concentration camp during World War 2 with his father. The book chronicles his experiences came from the year prior to its liberation by the Americans in 1945. In the Holocaust memoir Night, Elie Wiesel uses the motif of father-son relationships to convey that, especially in extreme circumstances, family

What would it do to a person to go to a concentration camp, see the horrible things, and come out alive? This book, Night, is about Eliezer Wiesel, who is both the main character and the author. Elie’s book is a memorial about his experience in Hitler’s concentration camps, what he went through, and how he survived. This paper is going to be about Eliezer’s horrific experience and the ways that it changed him.

In the beginning of the book, before experiencing life threatening difficulties, Elie was much more determined to stay with his family (in order to survive). Eliezer thought that his father was what kept him going and gave him strength, he was certain that the right thing to do was to stay with his dad. In chapter 3 Wiesel states, “My hand tightened its grip on my father. All I could think of was not to lose him. Not to remain alone” (30). In these sentences, Elie explains that he and his father needed to stay together. This quote also shows what Elie’s emotions were; he was scared to suffer through the concentration camp alone. Elie also shows his need for family when he says, “Franek, the foreman, assigned me to a corner... ‘Please, sir ... I’d like to be near

1933 through 1945 was a devastating period for Europe. Nazi Germany had taken over a significant part of Europe. In the result of the Genocide of six million Jews, but the killing of seventeen million total. Two works capture the horrors of this time. Elie Wiesel is a Jew from Transylvania, Romania who had been taken prisoner in 1944, and transported to Auschwitz with his family. During that time he had spent his time as a worker in a factory with his father, never wanting to leave him behind. Elie Wiesel shared his experience in his autobiography, Night, Published in 1960. After the war Elie Wiesel had become a College Professor, Nazi investigator, and Nobel Peace Prize winner. Then we also have Life is Beautiful, an Italian movie released in 1997 about an Italian Jewish family won the the Academy Award for the best foreign language film. Roberto Benigni, the director of Life is Beautiful won the Academy award for best actor in his role. Both Night and Life is Beautiful deal with the importance of the family relationship during the Holocaust, but they approach this horrific time in vastly different ways.

The relationship between a father and son is one of the strongest relationships between family members. A son looking after his father might seem unusual, but in unusual circumstances, relationships are often forced to adapt. The father is the mentor and the son should look up to the father for support and guidance. This relationship plays out in Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, through the concentration camps. Hitler and the Nazi’s have been deporting Jews to concentration camps and eventually killing them. Wiesel travels through the horrible circumstances. In 1944, Elie Wiesel lives in Hungary with his parents and his three sisters, but they deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and is split up, but remained with his father. Wiesel describes his experiences traveling through different concentration camps with his father, Shlomo. Wiesel tells about the different people he meets and events that happen. Wiesel meets other fathers and sons, whose relationships are not going well. Elie and his father stick together as they face many challenges. As time went on in the camps the fathers became weaker and their chances of survival decreased. The sons helped their fathers go on, but this would slow the sons down. In his Holocaust memoir Night, Elie Wiesel uses the motif of father-son relationships to show that while there are benefits to having a strong connection with someone amidst extreme circumstances, there are also disadvantages because the other person may become a burden.

Throughout the novel, we can understand that in the beginning, the relationship between Elie and his father was not the best because Elie believed his father cared more about the Jewish community than him. However, by the time the father and the son only had each other, they were depending on each other. Elie was only living for his father because he knew his father would not survive without him. They were both helping each other in a ways surviving. For example, Elie gave his father lessons in marching step, to help him survive (55). Also, Elie became less and less emphatic toward his dad during the concentration camp days. The Nazi sabotages the wonderful bond a father and a son had together. Elie could see his own father get beaten up and even than; he had no emotion or anger (39). Once his father got beat up with an iron bar, and Elie did nothing to help him, he just stood there (54). Even thought he had no emotion, even when his father past away, Elie said “I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. But I was out of tears. And deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last!...

One of the major themes that can be found in Night, by Elie Wiesel, is one of father/son relationships. To quote a father from the book, Stein, “The only thing that keeps me alive is knowing that Reizel and the little ones are still alive.” Not all father/son relationships are as good however. Another part of the book reads, “I once saw. . . a boy of thirteen, beat his father for not making his bed properly. As the old man quietly wept, the boy was yelling, ‘If you don’t stop crying instantly, I will no longer bring you bread. Understood?’” In presenting examples like these, Wiesel communicates a message of the importance of good father/son relationships to his readers. This paper will examine father/son relationships throughout the book,

A father-son relationship is one of the most important and strongest human relationships that exist. Throughout the memoir Night, the author clearly shows the importance of having a father figure and demonstrates the unbreakable bond between father and son. Chlomo played a significant role in his son Eliezers experience during the holocaust. Chlomos role included giving his son something to live for, sharing his fatherly wisdom, helping him survive and finally how the two felt safe together. Over the years of Eliezer’s suffering under the Nazis control, the only thing that allowed him to overcome his distress was Chlomo.

During the years prior to Elie's Wiesel's experience in the Holocaust, Elie and his father shared a distant relationship that lacked a tremendous amount of support and communications but, eventually, their bond strengthens as they rely on each other for survival and comfort.

At the beginning of the novel, when the Jews first arrive at the camps, all they have left is their family, so they cling to them. During one of the work periods, Elie comes across two brothers, “Yass and Tibi, two brothers… whose parents had been exterminated… they lived for each other, body and soul” (Wiesel 50). This relationship between the two siblings shows, a bond that has been strengthened by loss. Elie includes this small tidbit about them to show that the Jews still have some hope and compassion still in them. Once news of evacuation hits the camp, Elie’s only thought is of his father, “I was not thinking about death but not wanting to be seperated from my father” (Wiesel 82). This shows the personal level of how the Holocaust affected the families in it. It shows that because family was the only thing that they had left, that was all that they could think about. The Jews lose everything when the arrive at the camp so they cling to what they have, their family.

When Elie and his family are sent to a concentration camp, he is fortunate enough to not be separated from his father. At first, this is a relief, and is father is his will to survive. “The idea of dying, of ceasing to be, began to fascinate me. To no longer exist. To no longer feel the excruciating pain of my foot… My father’s presence was the only thing that stopped me. He was running next to me, out of breathe, out of strength, desperate. I had no right to let myself die. What would he do without me? I was his sole support.”(86)

In the story, Night by Elie Wiesel, there were many different types of relationships of father and son. The relationship with a son mistreating his father, a son leaving his father to die, a son attack a father just for his food and lastly the relationship between the author and his own son. It is true that self-preservation is a human instinct in which we all have, but would it be enough ruin everything between a father and son. It seems like nothing can separate a father and a son relationship since from the beginning a father will see their son like someone that can be a mini them. Just one thing can ruin everything, the feeling of only caring about yourself, self-preservation.