Themes in Night

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The Themes of Night

In the novel Night written by Elie Wiesel, Elie is a young boy who believes in God immensely. He began studying the cabbala (the perilous world of mysticism) at a very young age and he wept when he prayed. After being place in a concentration camp, this young man begins to lose all faith in God. "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. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never" (Wiesel ). It is the nocturnal silence, losing faith in a benevolent God, the rupture of father-son bonds, and man's inhumanity to man are all themes of the novel Night.

In the beginning of the book, Elie is an extremely religious young boy. He studies the Cabbala thoroughly and this is a reason that he is so religious. The Cabbala teaches Elie that "God is everywhere in the world, that nothing exists without God, that in fact everything in the material world is a reflection�or 'emanation'�of the Divine world" (Perry 1). Moshe the Beadle is Elie's Cabbala teacher. He helps Elie to understand the Cabbala. Moshe the Beadle tells Elie that "Man questions God and God answers. But we don't understand His answers. We can't understand them. Because they come from the depths of the soul, and they stay there until death. You will find the true answers, Eliezer, only within yourself!" (Wiesel ). Elie feels that any question he may have God should be able to answer. Although he may not understand God's answer he believes that in some way he will see the answer. When Elie looks to God for answers and gets no answer, he begins to lose faith. Why have faith in God if he cannot answer your questions? Is he really there? "To those faced with the reality of Auschwitz, God reveals Himself as an impotent entity who has been robbed of His attributes of justice and mercy by the Angel of Death" (Sibelman 15). Elie himself was at Auschwitz. The trying times that Elie faced while at Auschwitz more than likely play a heavy impact on how much faith Elie holds. Elie no longer has God to look to for the answers because he feels that God is not there. He feels that God has been silent and that he can no longer count on God. Elie goes from praying three times a day to saying, "Why, but why should I bless Him? In every fiber I rebelled. Because He had had thousands of children burned in His pits? Because he kept six crematories working night and day, on Sundays and feast days? Because in His great might He had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many factories of death? 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, to see our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, end in crematory? Praised be Thy Holy Name, Thou Who hast chosen us to be butchered on Thine altar'" (Wiesel 64). Perhaps it is the silence from God that has caused the downward fall in Elie's faith.

Indeed it is God's silence that completes Elie's loss of faith. This became most evident when the Gestapo hung the young angel faced pipel. Not only did they hang the young boy but they forced the prisoners to look him in the eyes as he was dying. "For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed" (Wiesel 6). As the Jewish people are walking past the pipel a man behind Elie says, "Where is God now" (Wiesel 6). As soon as the man says this Elie hears a voice within him reply, "Where is He? Here He is�He is hanging here on this gallows…" (Wiesel 6). The reply from within Elie signifies his total loss of faith. He feels that God has completely died with the young pipel on the gallows. The pipel on the gallows also in some ways is a resemblance to the crucifix. It is a resemblance because the young pipel signifies what is given to the Jews. Jesus signifies what is given to humans when he is on the crucifix. "Who, what, is dying on that gallows? One child, all children, and Elie Wiesel among them" (Roth 5). Not only does the pipel and God die but a part of Elie dies also. The part that once worshipped God so devoutly has now vanished. Elie's image of God is shattered. Elie's self is shattered. "The victim's self is shattered. When a world is shattered and faith is shattered, the self who lives in the world and shares the faith is likewise shattered" (Brown 74). With part of himself gone, Elie begins to transform into something that he is not. He begins to transform into a cruel person. The bond between him and his father begins to falter Write your Themes in Night research paper

The rupture of father-son bonds plays a huge impact on Elie himself. The fathers and sons generally traveled together to the concentration camps. Since they were always together the fathers and sons fed off of each other. But Elie was given a piece of advice, a sort of guideline to follow, "Here, every man has to fight for himself and not think of anyone else. Even of his father. Here, there are no fathers, no brothers, no friends. Everyone lives and dies for himself alone. I'll give you a sound piece of advice�don't give your ration of bread and soup to your old father" (Wiesel 105). But Elie did not listen. He and his father depended on one another for survival. They try to do as much as possible to help each other out but at the same time they have to compete to stay alive (Fine 55). On three different occasions Elie mentions sons horribly mistreating their fathers (Perry). Rabbi Elianhou's son had tried to get rid of him. He knew his father was not keeping up with him and he did not bother to stop and wait or help him. "Then I remembered something else his son had seen him losing ground, limping, staggering back to the rear of the column. He had seen him. And he had continued to run on in front, letting the distance between them grow greater" (Wiesel 87). Meir Katz killed his father over a crumb of bread. "Meir. Meir, my boy! Don't you recognize me? I'm your father . . . you're hurting me . . . you're killing your father! I've got some bread . . . for you too . . . for you too . . ." (Wiesel 6). Although Elie does not act brutal towards his father, Elie too feels annoyed by his father at times. "A terrible thought loomed up in my mind he had wanted to get rid of his father! He had felt his father was growing weak, he believed that the end was near and had sought this separation in order to get rid of the burden, to free himself from an encumbrance which could lessen his own chances of survival" (Wiesel 87). Elie sets out to see find his father, "But at the same moment this thought came into my mind 'Don't let me find him! If only I could get rid of this dead weight, so that I could use all my strength to struggle for my own survival, and only worry about myself'" (Wiesel 101). But still Elie's desire to survive is tied to his father and he is not able to have this these thoughts again. "Death wrapped itself around me till I was stifled. It stuck to me. I felt that I could touch it. The idea of dying, of no longer being, began to fascinate me. Not to exist any longer. Not to feel the horrible pains in my foot . . . My father's presence was the only thing that stopped me . . . I had no right to let myself die. What would he do without me? I was his only support" (Wiesel 8). Even after feeling that his father was a burden and that he may be better off without his father, Elie "prays to God to give him the strength never to do what Rabbi Eiahous's son has done" (Wiesel 87). Not only were fathers and sons going at it and causing pain to each other. But some of the Nazi workers were inflicting pain and even death on Jewish prisoners and getting amusement out of it. "Some workers amuse themselves by throwing pieces of bread into the open wagons and watching the starved men kill each other for a crumb" (Fine 5). Elie and his father never cause each other any pain but Elie does witness the murder of his father. In fact Elie does nothing to stop the murder of his father which happened right in front of him. Elie's father is asking Elie for some water and an officer tells him to be quiet. Elie's father does not hear the officer and continues to ask Elie for some water. At this time the officer strikes Elie's father over the head with an iron bar and all Elie does is back up for fear of being hit (Wiesel 106). The last word out of Elie's father's mouth is, "Eliezer" (Wiesel 106). Although Elie was sad that his father was gone and had been murdered he felt a sort of relief. "I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. But I had no more tears. And, in the depths of my being, in the recesses of my weekend conscience, could I have searched it, I might perhaps have found something like�free at last!" (Wiesel 106). Elie feels relief for a small amount of time but in the end his relief turns into a deep guilt.

Man's inhumanity to man also plays a role in the novel. Not only does Elie lose his faith in God but he loses faith in the world around him (Perry). "After experiencing such horror and cruelty in the world, the world no longer makes sense to Elie" (Perry). This feeling is not only because of what he sees the Nazis do but also it is caused by what he sees from his fellow prisoners. The fellow prisoners rather than sticking together to stay strong compete against each other to live. The first cruel things Elie experiences are indeed related to the Nazis. But the everlasting things that he experiences are the father son battles. The father son battles prove that hostility and cruelty breed hostility and cruelty (Perry). Elie does not realize this until towards the end of the book. Towards the end a Kapo (a Jewish prisoner who is chosen to be a barrack leader to the other prisoners; often harsh and cruel to Jews) tells Elie, "Here, every man has to fight for himself and not thing of anyone else. Even of his father. Here, there are no fathers, no brothers, no friends. Everyone lives and dies for himself alone. I'll give you a sound piece of advice�don't give your ration of bread and soup to your old father. There's nothing you can for him. And you're killing yourself. Instead, you ought to be having his ration" (Wiesel 105). This may seem cruel and inhumane but it is what Elie needed to do to survive.

The themes are obvious throughout the entire novel. They are shown in many ways. The nocturnal silence, Elie's struggle to maintain faith in a benevolent God, the rupture of father-son bonds, and man's inhumanity to man are pretty much what the novel is about. The times of the Holocaust were very harsh and nobody ever knew what to be expected. No prisoner will ever be the same. "One day I was able to get up, after gathering all my strength. I wanted to see myself in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me" (Wiesel 10).

Works Consulted

Alton, Anne Heibert, Essay. Novels for Students. Ed. Diane Telgen. Vol. 4. Detroit

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Brown, Robert McAfee. "Darkness That Eclipses Light (a moral journey�1)." Modern Critical Interpretations Elie Wiesel's Night. Ed. Harold Bloom. Philadelphia Chelsea House, 001. 6-.

Fine, Ellen. "Witness of the Night." Modern Critical Interpretations. 47-67.

Perry, Josh. SparkNote on Night. 1 April 00 http//www.sparknotes.com/lit/night.

Roth, John. "In the Beginning." Modern Critical Interpretations. 1-47.

Shevelev, Raphael, and Karine Schomer. Liberating The Ghosts. Oregon Lenswork, 16.

Sibelman, Simon. "Victims to Victors The Trilogy." Modern Critical Interpretations. 145-17.

Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York Bantam Books, 160.

Wollaston, Isabel. "The Possibility and Plausibility of Divine Abusiveness or Sadism as the Premise for a Religious Response to the Holocaust." 1 April 00 http//moses.creighton.edu/JRS/000/000-1.html.

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