Preview

Night By Elie Wiesel Quote Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
651 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Night By Elie Wiesel Quote Analysis
Many Jews were lost in the Holocaust and many Jewish survivors lost their faith. Unable to know why God would allow an event so inhumane like the Holocaust happen, makes society question Him. In Night, Eliezer was a Jew who was forced to go to a few concentration camps. In the camps Eliezer saw and experienced many barbaric events. Him and many other Jews struggled to survive, which made him question his beliefs. In the memoir Night by Eliezer Wiesel, he uses Eliezer’s relationship with God to show that people doubt their faith when times get tough and that sometimes when people lose faith they lose their purpose.
In the beginning of the book before Eliezer’s life became corrupt, he maintained a strong faith. “During the day I studied the Talmud, and at night I ran to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple”(1). The quote shows that in the beginning of the
…show more content…
First Eliezer questions his faith and then he forgets about it. In Night a young boy was being hang and Eliezer thought to himself, “Where is He? Here He is-He is hanging here on his gallows…”(62). In this quote Eliezer questioned God and his faith because God let something terrible happen, like a young boy get hang. This quote shows Eliezer questioning faith because he wondered why God did not stop such a cruel act like a hanging, or the Holocaust, from happening, especially when the people who support and believe in Him were getting hurt. On page 73 in Night, a man knew he was about to die so he asked for Eliezer and his friends to say the Kaddish for him three days after he left. Eliezer and his friends forgot to say the prayer. In this scene from Night Eliezer showed that when times get tough faith became less of a priority in life. Eliezer began to give up and forget about God to focus more on survival. As life gets harder and tougher people loses faith in order to focus on other

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
  • Powerful Essays

    Upon entering Birkenau, Eliezer experiences the terrible atrocities committed against the Jews by the Germans. Eliezer sees the Jews around him start to pray to God the Almighty. “For the first time, I felt anger rise within me. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?” (33). The feeling of confusion and anger is evident as Elie doubts God’s actions through rhetorical questions. Due to the questioning of God’s actions through rhetorical questions, the reader understands Elie’s frustration with God. He loses his acceptance and unconditional devotion to God, and his feelings of God’s abandonment begin to grow. However, the current questioning of his faith should not be understood as a loss of faith. At this point in the novel, Eliezer still looks towards Jewish prayer in order to provide himself with security at the brink of death. When Eliezer believes he is about to be thrown into the crematorium, despite himself, he recites a Jewish prayer. “Deep down, I was saying goodbye to my father, to the whole universe, and against my will I found myself whispering the words: ‘Yisgadal, veyiskadash, shmey raba’… May his name be exalted and sanctified. My heart was about to burst. There, I was face to face with the Angel of Death” (34). Eliezer, by invoking God’s…

    • 1240 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful 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
  • Good Essays

    In the book Elie went through a rollercoaster in his faith. When Elie and his family were first taken, everyone prayed, hoping their God would protect them through the journey. When things started to get horrifying Elie and all of the prisoners started to question their God, asking why would God put them through something like this and asking where he was while they were being…

    • 515 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I believe that Eliezer lost faith because he didn’t believe he had anyone to believe in. He believed that if his lord was there for him, he wouldn’t be in the position he is in at the time. He would not be fighting for his life in concentration camps where he was being tortured. Other people were relying on their faith because they strongly believed they would get out of it if they pray often. I’m sure that in the end, if his father had not died he would still rely strongly on his faith. After his father died, he wasn’t relying on anyone but himself. He didn’t have to fight for anyone but himself. I believe that is why he didn’t strongly rely on his faith, because he no longer had faith in anyone but himself.…

    • 137 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    and his faith. Every day, Elie studied Talmud, and practiced religion, and his life seemed to revolve around God. At the young age of thirteen, Elie became interested in the mystical practice of Kabbalah and asked his father to teach him. His father told him he was too young, but even after being discouraged, Elie stated “‘...I succeeded on my…

    • 510 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good 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

    In Elie Wiesel's memoir, Night, Wiesel estranges himself from his companions and morals to survive the Holocaust. It is expected that the Holocaust survivors would lose faith in God, their determination to go on living, and their reliance in others because of the horrific experiences that they faced day to day. It is understandable that a Holocaust survivor questions his faith in God when Jews are chanting the prayer of death for themselves. A person would question living when he sees the demise of loved ones and fellow Jews right before his…

    • 960 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Faith In Night

    • 371 Words
    • 2 Pages

    First, In the story Night by Elie Wiesel Elie has a strong faith in God at the beginning because he is practicing the Jewish culture every day and nothing bad has happened in his life. But as the story progresses he loses faith due to his struggles in life and because he feels that God will let the Holocaust go on forever. So therefore…

    • 371 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “Night” written by Elie Wiesel, Elie struggles with his faith. In the beginning of the book Elie’s faith is pure. When Elie was asked why he prays to god, he responded with, “Why did I pray?... Why did I live? Why did I breathe?”(Wiesel 4) Elie’s faith was unbreakable. His faith was so strong as a result of being in a Jewish family and being taught to pray and study Judaism daily. However his faith was put to the test during the Holocaust. Elie starts to doubt his faith by witnessing the amount of cruelty and evil while in the concentration camps. Elie wonders how a god could let such disgusting and cruel actions take place. He is also disgusted by the selfishness and cruelty he sees amongst his prisoners. Elie describes a scenario…

    • 371 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the book Night the reader learns what dreadful and devastating things happened in the Holocaust. The holocaust was and still is one of the worst things known to mankind. Hope is what not only helps people get through those devastating times, but as well as lets them know to not give up.…

    • 942 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Elie Wiesel's Analysis

    • 429 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The first time Elie started to doubt his faith was when they were in line to go to the crematoria. “Four the first time, I felt anger…

    • 429 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Eliezer had his faith vanished in others due to the cruelty of his adversaries. For example, one of the moments he…

    • 847 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    However, it took a first hand experience for him to realize that the world is full of hate. As he hears about and experiences the Holocaust his faith starts to die. A good example of this is on the day of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, thousands of men came to attend services. Thousands of voices repeated, "Blessed be the Name of the Eternal!" Eliezer thought, "Why, but why should I bless Him? Because he had thousands of children burned in his pits?... How could I say to Him: "Blessed art thou, Eternal, Master of the Universe, Who chose us from among the races to be tortured day and night? Praised be Thy Holy Name, Thou Who hast chosen us to be butchered on Thine altar?” This shows that through his journey, he has come to question why such a divine and pure God would let such cruelty be unleashed onto his people. His faith is equally shaken by the cruelty and selfishness he sees among the prisoners. He sees that the Holocaust exposes the self-interest, malicious, and cruelty of which everybody, the Nazis, his fellow prisoners, his fellow Jews, his brethren and even himself is capable of such sin. If the world is so horrible and cruel Elie feels God either must be horrible and cruel or must not exist at all. His feelings are shared within the Jewish community during that time. This is significant because for a religion to exist there has to be…

    • 1498 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays