Night - Elie Wiesel
The novel Night, by Elie Wiesel is a clear representation of loss of faith from beginning to end. Elie begins the story as a child who cries when he prays and begs to learn more of his religion. "I wept because-because of something inside me that felt the need for tears" (Wiesel, Night, 2). His faith is stronger than that of most Jews in the area, elderly and young. However, as he moves from camp to camp after his detainment, he starts to wonder what has happened to God, where he is, and how he is letting all this happen. This story represents losing faith in every way, because, over the course of the book, there are clear examples of Elie losing faith in himself, his father, and his religion. Elie's faith in himself, at the beginning of the story, is at the peak of its ascent. He yearns to be educated gain additional knowledge of his religion regardless of the cost to himself. He believes he can sufficiently learn the most complicated of areas of Judaism and he decides to learn all he can possibly take in. Elie's strength, courage, and belief in himself guide him to survive for many years. As Elie stays at each concentration camp, he is torn an additional length from his soul. In the beginning, Elie has two objectives
questioning god. "The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank him for?" (Wiesel, Night, 31). The more time Elie spends at concentration camps, the more he questions god. Confusion is set upon Elie, how could an all-powerful god let this happen to his faithful people? Why would God let this happen? Elie sees that the power that the concentration camps held is not to kill the people, but to kill the God and let the people suffer. "Where is God now? Where is he? Here he is-he is hanging here on this gallows. That night the soup tasted of corpses," (Wiesel, Night, 62). Elie begins to see that God isn't going to help them out of this mess. What good is a God that you pray to all your life if he can not even help you out of death one time? Elie loses his religious dignity and puts the Lord of the Universe beneath him. The camps that Elie passes through slowly strip him of his religion and show him that faith is getting has gotten him nowhere. All he has left is the hatred in his heart towards the man that causes the tormenting. "...documented evidence that Hitler gave a written order for the Holocaust" (Cowell, Scholar, A3) The second form of faith that Elie loses is that which he has in his father. Elie's second objective of his new life is not to be separated from his father, so he struggles to remain connected with him. "'Stay together, always' my father said" (Wiesel, Humanity, B5). Elie tries his hardest to stay with his father even through the worst of times. Fr
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Approximate Word count = 1044
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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