Night Thesis Paper
Suffering. A single word that that can mean so much. Throughout all of time, many people have suffered, and many people have caused that suffering. One of the worst times of suffering had to be during the Holocaust, and that is what Night is about; the suffering that one person dealt with during the Holocaust. The human spirit can endure a tremendous amount of suffering, yet can survive when surrounded by death and deprivation. Elie Wiesel’s Night tells of all the hardships he had to endure in order to live. He tells of all the obstacles that he encountered while in the different concentration camps, and what he did to get over these obstacles. Elie’s reason for living was the thought that he and his father would be able to live together as free people. Many of the other prisoners in the concentration camps probably had the same thinking. The fact that Elie went on as long as he did, with his father's burden, proves that if you have a will to live, you could. Elie’s relationship with his father was not great in the beginning of the book, but as they faced the hardships together, they grew closer with each passing day. When Elie witnesses what Rabbi Eliahu’s son had done while on the long march from one camp to another, by leaving his father without even telling him he was leaving. He felt that if he should do the same, he quickly forgot those thoughts, because without him, his father would surly die, and that without his father, he would have no reason to live. He knew that if he and his father did not survive together, then they would not survive at all. When Elie’s father is on his deathbed, Elie does everything in his power to try to save his father; including giving up his ration of soup and bread, not letting his father drink water, and trying to convince the Kapo’s that his father needed medical attention. Elie is willing to do anything just to keep his father alive. Without his father, Elie has no reason for living. Elie had endured