Night is a novel by Elie Wiesel that was first published in 1958. The book is a semi-autobiographical account of the author’s experiences as a Jewish teenager during the Holocaust.
Wiesel was born in Sighet, Romania, in 1928. He was raised in a traditional Jewish household and spent his early years studying the Torah and Talmud. When he was 15 years old, the Nazis invaded Hungary and began deporting Jews to concentration camps. Wiesel and his family were sent to Auschwitz, where his mother and sister were killed.
Wiesel eventually ended up at Buchenwald, where he was liberated by the Allies in 1945. After the war, he moved to France and studied literature at the Sorbonne. He eventually settled in the United States, where he became a citizen in 1963.
Wiesel has written more than 40 books, including Night, which has been translated into more than 30 languages. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
During World War 2, the Nazis split up many families and incarcerated them in concentration camps. In Elie Wiesel’s story “Night,” he describes his experience as a Jewish boy in a concentration camp during World War 2.
God is talked about a lot in the story, and how even though some people may have given up on God because of all the horrific things they witnessed while being in the concentration camps; Elie Wiesel still had hope and faith that God would help them. Many Jews were killed during this time just because of their religion, and how they were treated was just inhumane.
Some key points in Night are when Elie Wiesel loses his faith in God, when he questions God’s existence, and when ultimately decides that even if God does exist, he is not good.
Elie Wiesel’s loses his faith in God after witnessing multiple atrocities committed against him and other Jews throughout his time at the concentration camps.
Throughout the tale, Elies’ and several other Jews’ faiths and beliefs fluctuate as a result of their imprisonment. The narrative “Night” is about a young Jewish boy named Elie who was imprisoned in a concentration camp. Elie was sent to Auschwitz, where he was separated from his mother and sisters. Elie was placed with his father, who made a vow to stay together.
As days go by Elie and his father see the unimaginable, they witness people being killed for fun, children being burned alive, and others being worked to death. Many of the things that they see change their views on God. For example, Elie’s father at first believed in God, but after witnessing all of the deaths he started to lose his faith. Elie also starts to lose his faith as well because he could not understand how God could let this happen.
There were multiple times where he questioned God and even thought about giving up on him all together. However, there were a few moments where he still held onto his faith. One moment was when he was beaten so badly that he could not walk and was sure that he was going to die. He said a prayer and asked God for the strength to make it through this, and miraculously he did.
Even though Elie went through all of these struggles with his faith, in the end he still had some left. When he was finally liberated from the concentration camps, he was so happy that he thought about God and how much he has done for him. He even went as far as to say that “For the first time, I felt close to God” (Wiesel 116). This moment showed that even though Elie lost his faith at times, he still had some left in him.
Night by Elie Wiesel is a story that follows a young boy named Eliezer as he is taken from his home in Hungary to Auschwitz concentration camp. The novel chronicles his experience of the horrors of the holocaust and how they change his views on God.
Eliezer is just a child when he is taken from his home and separated from his family. He is put into a world of darkness and death, where he witnesses unimaginable things like people being killed for fun and children being burned alive. These experiences cause him to lose his faith in God. He questions God and even thinks about giving up on him altogether.
However, there are moments when Eliezer still holds onto his faith. One moment is when he is beaten so badly that he can barely walk and is sure that he is going to die. He says a prayer and asks God for the strength to make it through this, and miraculously he does.
Even though Eliezer goes through all of these struggles with his faith, in the end he still has some left. When he is finally liberated from the concentration camp, he is so happy that he thinks about God and how much God has done for him. He even goes as far as to say that “For the first time, I felt close to God” (Wiesel 116). This moment showed that even though Eliezer lost his faith at times, he still had some left in him.
Many characters’ feelings fluctuated over the course of “Night.” Elie is one such character who changed throughout the narrative. At first, he explains how he has always been firm in his faith in God. That would alter as a result of what he saw during the concentration camps.
One night he said “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. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.”(Wiesel 34). The next time we see Elie have any type of religious thought is when he is on the death march.
One day a man asks him for water and Elie gives it to him with no second thought. The man drinks from it and then gives it back to Elie. Afterward he thinks to himself how God could let this happen and still be God. The next time we see God mentioned is when they are back in the camp and a little boy is hanged in front of everyone for stealing a piece of bread.
After that Elie says his final words about God.“For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. I looked at this man who had been my teacher, my spiritual father, and I saw nothing but a human being like myself. A human being who was suffering as much as I was, a human being whose God had forsaken him… For God’s sake, where is God?” (Wiesel 61).