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How Does Elie Wiesel's Struggles To Stay Human

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How Does Elie Wiesel's Struggles To Stay Human
The Struggle to Remain Human Everyone is born to be different. People are born with their own quirky personalities, habits, and flaws. So many people attempt to change to be what is socially acceptable, but is being the same really what people want? Dehumanization; Hitler uses this tactic during the Holocaust to strip the Jewish people of their individuality. He replaces their personalities with animal-like tendencies. Throughout Elie Wiesel’s autobiography Night, he undergoes the symptoms of emotional death, encounters faith-breaking situations, and internally struggles with what is morally right versus the mentality of a twelve-year old boy trying to survive. Wiesel reluctantly transforms into an emotionally dead being due to his imprisonment in the German concentration camps. The camp dentist explains to Elie that his gold crown is going to be removed from his mouth. Day after day to avoid this, Elie comes up with excuses as to why he cannot have the crown taken away. This goes on for a few days until the dentist is caught trafficking gold teeth. Escaping the painful procedure, Elie keeps his gold crown. “I now took little interest in anything… Bread, soup, -- these were my whole life,” (pg. 50). …show more content…
His personality is not like it was before his year spent in the German concentration camps, but it is no longer as it was during the Holocaust either. He does not see himself as a body with no meaning, and his faith is stronger than that of the angry boy he was who thought God abandoned him back in Nazi Germany. After traumatic and life altering experiences, a person has to have the bravery, determination, and a will to want to return to a life of normalcy. Many do not recover, but the success or failure of a recovery depends on the individual person. Wiesel, now a successful, contributing citizen of society, is proof that re-humanization after dehumanization is more than
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