Night

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorHigh School, 11th grade February 2008

download word file, 2 pages 0.0

Downloaded 4 times

Elie's Night is about the effect of the Holocaust on Jewish and the hard ships they are forced to overcome. Elie and the Jews struggle with physical hardships such as the long marches in the snow (32-35). Some questioned their beliefs in their God. The members of the camps are even forced to witness executions. The struggle of the Jewish population is a theme in the novel Night.

A huge mass of people is forced to run, and if one collapses, is injured, or is too tired to keep moving, they are shot or trampled without any remorse (81-85). An image that stays in Elie's memory is of Rabbi Eliahou's son leaving the Rabbi for dead. The father and son are running together when the father begins to get tired. The Rabbi falls farther and farther behind while his son and his son runs on. The son believes he will be better off without his father.

This makes Elie think of what he will do if his father becomes as weak as the Rabbi. He decides that he will never leave his father, even if staying with him will be the cause of his own death (87).

Elie's faith in God is strong at the beginning of the novel, but weakens as he spends more time at the concentration camp. The readers see this when Elie's father asks the gypsy where a bathroom is. Not only does the gypsy ignore his question, but he also strikes him in the head and he hits the floor. Elie witnesses the entire ordeal. He realizes that nothing, not even his faith in God, can save him from the punishment that would occur if he attempted to attack on his father the gypsy. If the gypsy's attack had come just...