Elie Wiesel Character Analysis

In the beginning of Night we see a young, innocent thirteen year old and deeply observant Wiesel, who wants to get closer to God and devotes his time studying Talmud by day, and at night the kabbalah with his friend and also mentor Moshie the Beatle. When Wiesel enters the Auschwitz concentration camp, his childhood and innocence are shattered when he witnesses men, women, and children being dumped into fiery graves. Throughout Night Elie Wiesel’s view about humanity and God changes, Wiesel starts to lose faith in God and question his existence, his view of humanity also changes when he sees how the exposure of human cruelty can deprive humans of their sense of morality and humanity.

People can change very much in bad situations like the people in the Holocaust, more specifically, Elie Wiesel, a 15 year old who got sent to a concentration camp in Auschwitz. In the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel, the main character, Elie, changed in many ways throughout the book because of the different experiences and sights he had to go through in Auschwitz.

Traumatic and scarring events occur on a daily basis; from house fires to war, these memories are almost impossible to forget. The Holocaust is only one of the millions of traumas that have occurred, yet it is known worldwide for sourcing millions of deaths. Elie Wiesel was among the many victims of the Holocaust, and one of the few survivors. In the memoir, “Night”, by Elie Wiesel, Elie, the main character, is forever changed because of his traumatic experiences in the Auschwitz concentration camps.

As Elie gets used to his new life in such a hellish state, he realizes that the trusting and faithful child that he once had been had been taken away along with his family and all else that he had ever known. While so many others around him still implore the God of their past to bring them through their suffering, Wiesel reveals to the reader that although he still believes that there is a God, he no longer sees Him as a just and compassionate leader but a cruel and testing spectator.

Night, by Elie Wiesel, showed the devastation of Eliezer’s childhood and illustrated the loss of innocence through the evil of others. Elie Wiesel expressed to us that one’s own faith and beliefs can be challenged through torture and ongoing suffering. The novel, Night, allowed the reader to witness the change in Eliezer from one of an innocent child who strongly adhered to his faith in God into a person who questioned not only his faith and God but of himself as well. The cruelty is shown to him while in the concentration camp forced him to wonder if there was a God and if so why would he put him and the others through such torture. Through his suffering, Eliezer’s beliefs dramatically and negatively changed his faith in God and compelled him to experience a transformative relationship with his father.

Wiesel struggled a lot with his faith in Night. Before the Holocaust he had full faith in God. But his faith and trust in God started to slip throughout his time in the concentration camp. The breaking point in where Wiesel completely lost his faith in God was when the young pipel was hung. After witnessing

The Holocaust of 1933 to 1945 was a tragic period of time in history, killing more than 6 million Jewish people. One of its few survivors: Elie Wiesel, has written a book titled Night explaining his experiences as a prisoner of war. His novel is about young Elie Wiesel arriving in Auschwitz and beginning to labor under the Nazis’ unforgiving rule. Over the course of the book, Elie continually struggles with his relationship with God and feels conflict trying to decide between supporting his ever crippling father and his best chance at survival. Conclusively, because of his time in the concentration camps, Elie’s views of and relationship with God are challenged and his morals are changed.

Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel said “If in my lifetime I was to write only one book, this would be just the one” (Wiesel, Preface to the New Translation). Growing up he experienced many hardships that he'd never expect to go through. In his book Night he recounted his experiences and depicted everything that was going on during the Holocaust. Elie’s experiences shaped him into a completely different person and caused him to view things differently. As Elie spent more time in camp he saw a lack of justice which caused him to change his perspective of God; he was not denying God’s existence, but questioned his absolute justice, still he did not lose all faith.

In the memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel is only a teenager when he is taken by the Nazis and used as a labor force. He is taken to many concentration camps in Nazi Germany, now Poland. At the camps, he is treated awfully. He is at the bottom of the hierarchy of needs. Because of this, Elie changes in all kinds of ways.

The evil had changed his heart in such a short period of time. Consequently, he slowly began to feel animosity towards his father. At one point in the story Wiesel states “ I stood petrified. What had happened to me? My father had just been struck, in front of me, and I had not even blinked. I had watched and kept silent. Only yesterday, I would have dug my nails into this criminals flash. Had I change that much? So fast?” (39). Elie recognized he was changing… “only yesterday”, he “kept silent”. Wiesel also had bitterness toward his father. Wiesel describes one of many beatings. “I had watched it all happening without moving. I kept silent. In fact, I thought of stealing away in order not to suffer the blows. What’s more, if I felt anger at that moment, it was not directed at the Kapo but at my father. Why couldn’t he have avoided Idek’s wrath?” (54). Elie kept silent again. He noticed all of the changes in himself that had occurred while he was in the concentration camp. He was not proud of them. “That was what life in a concentration camp had made…” (54) of him. Elie did not like the changes he saw in himself, yet he did nothing to change

in the works of elie wiesel the night elie was a devortor to jewish faith and was sent to series of concentration camps were his faith was tested throughtout the novel. elie and other jews were confronting far evil depths of mankind. where elie saw the death of his family and his own soul. where he questioned the almight exitences. his faith was damged through the event that happen in the camp elie faith in god was bruised due to the abuse he was subject

In Night, by Elie Wiesel, Elie loses faith in his religion and begins to focus on survival as he continues to live in a concentration camp during the Holocaust. His desire to believe in God is clear because he wants a reason to live, such as the purpose that religion makes him feel. In the beginning of the memoir, Moishe the Beadle told Elie that “man comes closer to God through the questions he asks Him”(5). Elie is shown searching for God when asking Him questions, such as, “Why do you go on troubling these poor people's wounded minds”(65)? He is referring to the torture God is allowing. Elie is questioning the justice behind God’s actions, showcasing the beginning of his loss of faith. Other Jews told Elie that he must trust in God

Throughout the Novel, “Night” Elie Wiesel was dedicated to his religion and faith but after awhile he started to give up on God. Elie saw children burned and all kinds of people getting killed for no reason in the concentration camps. He could not believe God would let this happen to innocent people. His faith began to diminish because of the images he saw. People around Elie kept doubting God and that influenced him also. Throughout the Novel “Night” Elie Wiesel thoughts towards God changed in major ways.In the begining of the novel Elie was very religous but that changed extremely fast after arriving at Auchwitz and saw what he say. Towards the end of all of his pain he went through he lost all his faith in God.

One who succumbs under the harshness of facing adversity is Eliezer Wiesel. For instance, on his way to a concentration camp, he sees the bodies of babies and children being burned in a ditch: "For the first time, I felt revolt rise up in me. Why should I bless His name? The Eternal Lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank Him for?” (31). When Elie asks, “Why should I bless His name?”, after witnessing this catastrophe, his apostasy grows stronger. As he experiences the Nazis punishments, his ultimate trust in God diminishes into conflicts with what he should truly believe in. Furthermore, when Elie finally reaches the last concentration camp and wakes up, he thinks about looking for his missing father,

In the book Night, Elie Wiesel presents many interesting and complex topics and themes. Some of these topics are faith, identity, and father-son relationships. One topic Wiesel addresses in Night is when forced thought great trauma one begins to abandon their former beliefs. The theme he develops around this topic is faith This is seen on p. 66 when Eliezer goes more in depth about how he is questioning God and why he would let this happen to his people. The theme is further explored on p.91 when despite himself he prays to stick by his father after he found out that the reverend's son abandoned him in the run. These examples show how he is denying God but he still has some faith in him. It also shows how desperate he is for some kind of hope