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Published: Friday 25th of January 2013

How to Write a Night Essay Example

The novel “Night” by Elie Wiesel is an autobiographical narrative following the writer’s own experience with his father in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, two of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War. This story is short, just over 100 pages in length, but serves as a captivating piece of highly renowned literature. Fortunately, Wiesel survived the holocaust but unfortunately, his father did not. During that novel the main narrator Eliezer undergoes a series of life-changing discoveries, his most prominent being that he renounces his faith in God. Another is a reversal of the father-son relationship, whereby he becomes disgusted with himself for wanting his father to stop depending on him and being a dead weight. In this novel, Elie obviously needs to fend for himself just like every other person in a concentration camp and his father is, unfortunately, a huge burden on him and holds him back. Elie longs to be with his father, yet his relationship changes as he becomes his caregiver, watching him decline and deteriorate rapidly into helplessness. The novel outlines truly barbaric ways of concentration camps and how humanity breaks down in horrific and seemingly unimaginable ways. Wiesel intended his short novel to remind future generations of the horrific times of the holocaust, hoping for history to not repeat itself in future. As an autobiographical novel, this leads a reader to the most intimate thoughts and soliloquies, offering a precise representation of how things were. Sincerity of this message and eyewitness accounts hold true and make one feel that they are within the others in the concentration camps. Read the book and you'll notice that Elie's life has been completely changed by what he witnessed during the Holocaust. The writer's faith is being put into question throughout his novel as he becomes increasingly unsure of his faith as the novel progresses. Throughout this novel, Elie witnesses many key tragic events that put his faith into question, such as being forced to watch young children's bodies’ burn slowly to death or when he witnesses a young boy exploit his father for food to the point that the boy’s father dies. Elie’s account of malnourishment in camps is impeccable and harrowing to read - there are even descriptions of people killing others in order to sustain themselves to live on. It becomes a dog-eat-dog world as soon as prisoners enter the concentration camps. This puts everything into perspective for Elie, his faith weakening and ultimately him reconsidering his belief in God and Judaism. Elie ponders deep ethical questions, such as how can God allow a man to kill another man? How can God let society evolve to take such a brutal turn for the worse? If there is a loving God who wants the best for everyone, why has he let so many people suffering needlessly? These are all questions that ultimately a reader ponders too. It comes as no surprise that Elie's father dies within the novel, however, when Elie is confronted with this stark reality, he does not weep. Wiesel has made a point that death has become so commonplace for him and has become so accustomed to people dying that it has no bearing on him whatsoever. Elie wonders why so many innocent lives are taken from the world, yet ends up not being phased when they are taken away. This further leads Elie to question God's purpose and whether he exists. In the same way that Elie has become unfazed by death, the author illustrates how guards in camps have also become unfazed by death as they inflict suffering that leads to countless deaths of innocent people. It is as if every person in this novel has embraced death in some way or another, with obvious worse outcomes for some than others. Novel outlines the complete lack of moral code as well a the total disregard for ethics, both from guards and even from prisoner's points of viewing themselves. It is obvious that guards are engaging in highly unethical behavior throughout this book - guards use cruel force on prisoners, subject prisoners to random beatings and treat them with the least dignity and respect imaginable. Some of the prisoners are even beaten until they lose consciousness as punishment for things that shouldn't even be punishable. It is Elie's own father that succumbs to these beatings. Unfortunately, this leads to the end of his father's life as he is beaten in his bed to his death by guards. Elie doesn't speak up for fear of being beaten himself. In other cases, guards are abusing prisoners Hazel by hanging children - the author questions how God allows such things to happen in his world.