Preview

Night By Elie Wiesel Character Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
676 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Night By Elie Wiesel Character Analysis
In the novel Night, Elie Wiesel and his father were held captive in many concentration camps he had to face many conflicts; some with other Jews but mainly with himself. Being in a situation like this really had an impact on Wiesel, countless times he was faced with tough decisions. One of the most prominent internal conflicts throughout the novel Night is, Wiesel’s inner struggle to maintain a relationship with God. In the beginning of the novel the reader can pick up right away that Wiesel and his family are religious, however, it is very prevalent that Wiesel does not know why he truly believes in God. Like many teenagers, we follow what our parents do and believe without any question. For example Wiesel’s father asks him “why do you …show more content…
Once Wiesel and his father were separated from his mother and sister he could tell that his father would not be the same. The concentration camps have stripped away his manhood and left a shell of his former self. Many other jews told Wiesel hat he needs to let his father go if he wants to survive in the camp. However, he did not listen to him, his love for his father was too strong that he could not let him go. And who could blame him, he is all that he has left. His father is the only thing that is a reflection of his former life. Until one day Wiesel felt that he loses his sense of self, his father was getting beaten but he stood there and just watched. He later had much remorse for what he did, he could not believe that he has changed so much.(39) Later in the novel his father became weaker and weaker and started to become a burden on him, this caused Wiesel to contemplate if his father is even worth it anymore. Wiesel’s father got in trouble with the Kapo and was beaten yet this time Wiesel’s anger was focused on his father and not the Kapo. (54) He started to blame his father, like it was his fault that he was getting beaten. The concentration camps have changed Wiesel into a person he could hardly recognize

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Silence exists as an absolute in a metaphysical sense, the enemy of many is silence, the silence of enemies, the silence of bystanders and the silence of those who could not be heard. In the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, silence was one of the appalling reasons was so many Jewish people were killed during the holocaust. Silent is what the US was during the mass murder of Jewish civilians, what the people in nearby towns were when they knew what was going on, but refused to acknowledge what was going on and silent is what all the dead Jews are now. The Holocaust taught us to not be silent when other people are in need.…

    • 464 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The time period during World War II was very devastating. There were a countless amount of brutal deaths, with people even being burned alive. The setting of Night takes place in 1944, in a concentration camp called Buchenwald. It all starts out when the main character, Eliezer, has his Jewish hometown overrun by the Germans. Eliezer's hometown gets turned into a ghetto by the Germans, and they are forced to stay in the ghetto until the whole neighborhood is sent to the concentration camps. Since the neighborhood is Jewish, they are shipped off in cattle carts to the concentration camps, where most of the neighbors will spend the rest of their days. One of the ladies on the cattle cart was even going crazy. “ Look! Look at this fire! This…

    • 427 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Elie and his father march to Gleiwitz and are crammed into barracks. They are soon crowded into cattle cars of 100. Fights broke out over pieces of bread that were thrown into the cars by Germans. Those who died were thrown off the train. Only twelve remained in Elie’s car when he and his father arrived at Buchenwald.…

    • 99 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    On the evening of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) the Jews in Buna gather for a prayer. Eliezer, who once lived for prayer and religious study, rebels against this. He feels that humans are, in a sense, greater than God, stronger than God, to still pray to a God who allows such horrors. "I was the accuser, God the accused……

    • 1119 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Night” by Elie Wiesel focuses on Wiesel’s experience with his father in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944 and 1945, toward the end of the Second World War. It all begins in 1941 with Eliezer is a twelve-year-old boy living in Sighet. He is the only son in an Orthodox Jewish family and is evidently quite religious. Eliezer learns the truth about World War II and the Holocaust through his teacher, Moshe the Beadle who was deported and escaped. When Moshe returns he tells everyone about how the people deported were being killed and tortured. Nobody believed Moshe until they themselves were being shoved in train cars and taken to Auschwitz. When they reached the gates of Auschwitz Eliezer and his family are…

    • 692 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel he talks about what he’s been through. He also writes about his struggles and what he has suffered through when he was under Nazi control. The Nazis didn’t care one bit if the Jews died and didn’t stop once to realize that what they were doing was very wrong and crucial. In the Galician forest, near Kolomay the Gestapo forced the Jews to dig huge trenches and when they had finished their work the Gestapo shot the Jewish prisoners into the huge trenches without passion or haste (Wiesel 6). The Jews fell into to the huge bloody trenches and those who didn’t die straight away after being shot would be left to bleed out and slowly die in the pit (6). Jewish people needed to live the Holocaust but the crucial Nazis…

    • 166 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Elie Wiesel relationship with god in the book night is quite rough! World war 2 breaks out in the late 1930's. Adolf Hitler plunges Gremany into darkness while trying to take over bordering countries with his army of Nazis. Elie is a 15 year old boy who lives in Hungary, Which is close to Germany. Along with a lot more Jews Elie is taken away from his home and into a world of terror. Night is a memoir of those expirences and a reminder that these events should never be able to repeat themselvs. The Holocaust presents one of the most disturbing dilemmas of the twnntieth century. Elie wiesel wound up surviving the Holocaust. He began to reevaluate god in his world. He did so in his writings, in which he questions god and tells us the answers that he recieves. The author of night, Elie Wiesel tells about his childhood and religous observances, he also shows his anger towards god to reveal how he is still a believer in his Jewish…

    • 342 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    At the beginning of Night, Eliezer was driven to further his knowledge of the Kabbalah despite his father’s wishes. He was so determined that he found a master in Moishe the Beadle to help him. Together Eliezer and Moishe would read the Zohar to “discover within the very essence of divinity (5).” Eliezer hoped to enter eternity, a time that he thought “question and answer would become ONE (5).” However, Eliezer’s faith and relationship with God began to change because of the traumatic experiences he suffered during the Holocaust.…

    • 657 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout Elie’s harsh experience, he loses faith in God. Specifically, Elie becomes quite angry and unthankful to God, for they are admitted into the camp. Elie feels that there was no reason to praise God’s name because the “terrible Master of the Universe”, chose to be silent. (p.66) At this point, Elie and his father realize that this horrible camp will unfortunately be their daily lives for an unknown amount of time.…

    • 812 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout the graphic and devastating scenes in Elie Wiesel’s Night, his character’s personality and outlook on the world greatly changed. The concentration camp transformed Elie into a shell of a man. Elie would never quite have the same philosophical views or the same outlook on family as he did before experiencing the atrocities Hitler had waiting for him in the camps. Elie also would never be able to view himself quite the same when he looked in the mirror.…

    • 705 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The main character and the author in the book, Night is Elie Wiesel. The book Night is about a family going to a concentration camp called Auschwitz. Elie has to make some major life choices. Also, how he changes a lot throughout the story is very noticeable.…

    • 1143 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Inhumanity in Night

    • 651 Words
    • 2 Pages

    One example of the heinous acts of the Germans that stands out occurs at the end of the war, when Wiesel and the rest of the camp of Buna are being forced to transfer to Gleiwitz. This transfer is a long, arduous, and tiring journey for all who are involved. The weather is painfully cold, and snow fell heavily; the distance was greater than most people today will even dream of walking. The huge mass of people is often forced to run, and if one collapses, is injured, or simply can no longer bear the pain, they are shot or trampled without pity. An image that secures itself in Wiesel's memory is that of the Rabbi Eliahou's son leaving the Rabbi for dead. The father and son are running together when the father begins to grow tired. As the Rabbi falls farther and farther behind his son, his son runs on, pretending not to see what is happening to his father. This spectacle causes Wiesel to think of what he would do if his father ever became as weak as the Rabbi did. He decides that he would never leave his father, even if staying with him would be the cause of his death.The German forces are so adept at breaking the spirits of the Jews that we can see the effects throughout Wiesel's novel.…

    • 651 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the novel, nighttime is used to symbolize a period of both physical and spiritual darkness, death, and Elie’s loss of faith in god. This is the first mention during the first few chapters when Elie compares his life to an endless night: “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed.”…

    • 223 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There seems to be two different ways one could view an opposite base off what Elie Wiesel is stating in this quote. One could say that opposites are the actions or viewpoints that are different from one another and mean things that contradictory to each other. However, one could also say that an opposite is based on the level of feeling that goes into something like whether one cares or not. For example, hate could very well be the opposite of love since hate is where one dislikes a person and love is where one likes a person. On the flipside, indifference can be love's opposite in the sense that love and hate both share a level of feeling and having put thought into something. Indifference on the other hand means there seems to be an absence of feeling making it the opposite of both love and hate. This theory seems to work for all the statements except the last one about life and…

    • 482 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Genocide, a word that has affected millions yet it’s a crime that has never been committed. Millions have been killed due to a belief that they are subordinate as a group, yet genocide has not ever been declared. With over 10 million dead, where are the survivors? What compelled them to persevere and strive towards survival? Well, Elie Wiesel lived to tell the story. Elie tells about his struggles in his novel called Night. He speaks upon what had happened to him and his family in the holocaust, and what ultimately led him to living through the holocaust. The reason he is alive today and was able to tell the story, is because of his persistence to live, his mental strength to keep going, and his overall grit to become one of the historic survivors that he is today.…

    • 663 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays