In this section of Night by Elie Wiesel, one theme during his story of the Holocaust sticks out to me. That theme is faith, faith is a big role in the novel. In the beginning of the novel, Elie has a lot of faith, he thinks that everything will be okay and the war will be over quickly. But as the novel goes by, he quickly loses faith in God, life, and the future.
When Elie is working at the factory Idek was on furious rant and saw that Elie’s dad was slacking so he decided to start beating him with a metal bar. Elie is furious about this event but he can’t do anything or he will be killed, so all he could do was watch. This really tore Elie’s faith because, he can’t do anything or he will be killed it is like he is in a room and if you take one step you will fall into lava. So he constantly feels like he is trap. Another event that happened that really hurt Elie’s faith was when there were two prisoners who were trying to make weapons that were going to be hanged also got in trouble a 11 year boy and he was also hanged. When the boy was hanged he was to light for the noose to work so everyone had to watch him suffer a slow death. That night Elie said in the book “The soup tasted like corpses that night” this shows how Elie’s faith really goes, he now understands how terrible the Nazis are and how they really will do anything.
The way Wiesel writes his memoir is almost like it’s written in prose, he is extremely descriptive with his writing, and his sentences flow, but he keeps the plot fast-paced and moving like the greatest poems are. There was one part I read that almost brought me to tears: the uncertainty of it, the questions it left, and the horrifying thought that it was pure hope that was keeping these people alive when there truly was nothing to hope for. “Take care of your son. He is very weak, very dehydrated. Take care of yourselves, you must avoid selections. Eat! Anything. Anytime. Eat all you can. The weak don’t last very long around here”… And he himself was so thin, so withered, so weak… “The only thing that keeps me alive,” he kept saying, “is to know that Reizel and the little ones are still alive. Were it not for them, I would give up.” One evening, he came to see us, his face radiant. “A transport just arrived from Antwerp. I shall go to see them tomorrow. Surely they will hav...
I wrote that faith was a big piece in the book too. It's truly amazing how that from one event in a person's life could be so traumatic that they could lose faith in the one thing they should be able to hold on to in times like this. Great job.
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