People change a lot though out their lifetime. In the story Night, by Elie Wiesel, Elie recalls and retells what happened to him during the Holocaust. He talks about what he witnessed and encountered in the concentration camps. Because of that, he changed, for better or worse. During the story, he struggles with his inner demon. He doesn’t understand himself anymore and rediscovers himself throughout the story. He loses his faith in God and his childlike innocence.
In the beginning of the story, Ellie is a very religious person. He faithfully believes in God and that God can do anything to help anyone. However, as the story progresses, he begins to question the existence of God and starts to become an agnostic. “Where is God now? And I heard a voice within me answer him: Where is he? Here he is-He is hanging here on this gallows.” (Wiesel 62 ) This shows that his faith has is getting shaky and isn’t as strong as it was before. Instead of believing in everything that God does, he starts to doubt that God exists or if God is omnipotent and all benevolent. He also starts to “reject” God in his life, and he does not do the things that he used to believe pleased God. “I no longer accepted God’s silence. As I swallowed my bowl of soup, I saw in the gesture an act of rebellion and protest against him. And i nibbled my crust of bread.” (Wiezel 66) In the beginning, he was a very religious youth that wanted to become a rabbi, however, by the middle or the end of the book, he become agnostic and either doesn’t know or doesn’t believe that there is a God in the world.
Around the middle to the end of the story, Elie loses hope in life, and hope in escape of the labor/concentration camp. In the beginning of the story he and the people in his villiage are really hopeful about the camps. They were thinking that it would only be temporary, that it would be over before you know it, and that everything would be all right, everyone would be safe. “People said: The Russian army’s making gigantic strides forward...Hitler won’t be able to do us any harm, even if he wants to.” (Wiezel 6) This shows that in the beginning of the story, when the Germans were almost about to arrive or already arrived in Elie’s village, the Jewish people we still unconcerned and still had hope that they war would end with them escaping unscathed. Even when they are put into camps, they still have hope that other people will come and rescue them. However, as the story goes on and on, they start losing hope of a rescue and they feel like they will be kept in the camps forever. “The camp was to be sent further back. Where to? To somewhere right in the depths of Germany, to other camps; there was no shortage of them. “When?” “Tomorrow evening” “Perhaps the Russians will arrive first.” “Perhaps” We knew perfectly well that they would not.” (Wiezel 78) “I learned after the war the fate of those who had stayed behind in the hospital. They were quite simply liberated by the Russians two days after the evacuation.” (Wiezel 78) This showed how Elie and his father had given up hope that they would be liberated. For example, in the first quote, the prisoners were discussing how the Russians were coming and that they camp was being evacuated. They didn’t even have the hope that the Russians would come in time and rescue them from their tormentors.In the second quote, Elie and his father had run away from the infirmary that they were being kept in, and they had run back to the German concentration camps. Even though they knew that the Russians were coming and the Germans were gone form the camp, they didn’t have the hope that they would survive in the camp long enough for the Russians to arrive. The sad part is that they Russians actually DID show up two days later and liberated everyone there. He had turned into a less hopeful and less trusting person.
By the end of the story., his opinion of his father starts to change. Instead of loving him unconditionally like he did before they went into the concentration camp, he starts to wonder what would happen if he abandoned his father,how much more freedom he would have, and how much longer he would live. He starts feeling that his father is holding him back and that he would survive longer and better if his father was gone. “Its too late to save your old father. I said to myself. You ought to be having 2 rations of bread, 2 rations of soup.” (Wiezel 105) Also, he did not want to give his father some soup even though his father really wanted and probably needed it. “I gave him what was left of my soup. But it was with a heavy heart. I felt that I was giving it up to him against my will. No better than Rabbi Eliahou’s son had I withstood the test.” (Wiezel 102) Before the concentration camp, he would have done whatever his father told him to do, since it was his father. Now however, he doesn’t even want to give him soup without a heavy heart and an unwillingness. He also sort of abandons his father in the end. When his father was clubbed in the head by a SS guard because he kept moaning Elie’s name, his father was sent to the brink of death. His father was calling Elie’s name, summoning him to his side, but Elie just sat there and looked at his father as he died. “He went on calling me. The officer dealt him a violent blow on the head with his truncheon. I did not move. I was afraid. My body was afraid of also receiving a blow. Then my father made a rattling noise and it was my name “Eliezer”. I could see that he was still breathing-spasmodically. I did not move.” “Bending over him, I stayed gazing at him for over an hour, engraving into myself the picture of his blood-stained face, his shattered skull. Then I had to go to bed. I climbed into my bunk, above my father, who was still alive.” (Wiezel 106) The concentration camp changed his relationship towards his dad. While he used to respect and love his dad, now, he contemplates letting his father die, doesn’t want to give him food, and wonders how his life would be if his father was gone. His thoughts about family and his previous loyalty to his father and family was shaken. He is now a boy that simply want to survive on his own with out anyone else dragging him down, such as his aging and sickly father.
People change a lot throughout their lifetimes, for better or for worse. All of the things that Elie has witnessed and experienced through out his time in the concentration camps have changed him into a different person, with different hope, dreams, idea, beliefs, etc. Because all of the atrocities have changed him for the worse more than for the better, we have to make sure that none of the things that have happened to him or he witnessed happen to any other people. The things that he witnessed and experienced were cruel and inhumane, and will change many people.
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