Night Essay Essay, Research Paper

Dead of Night

From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me.

The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left

me. Many may know the raw emotion of hurt and anguish, but how

often does that anguish arise from internal conflict? In the

novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the conflict over Wiesel s

diminishing faith in God is parallel to his decreasing loyalty

to his father. He is troubled and tormented by feelings of

guilt. His lack of faith and loyalty account for the deadness

in the young man s eyes as he gazes into a mirror after his

liberation.

In the onset of the novel, Elie s faith in God is

prominent. As the novel progresses, however, Elie loses faith

little by little. At the age of twelve, he asks his father,

Chlomo, to find him a master to teach him the studies of the

cabbala. His faith in God is very strong for such a young

child, and his faith continues to flourish as time goes on. I

believed profoundly. During the day I studied the Talmud, and

at night I rant to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of

the Temple (1). However, once the deportation of the ghettoes

occurs, Elie s faith begins to grow weaker. On the day of Rosh

Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, thousands of prisoners attend the

services. The air rang with cries of, Blessed be the Name of

the Eternal! But in Elie s mind, he wonders,

Why, but why should I bless Him? Because he had thousands of children burned in His pits? Because He kept six crematories work-

ing night and day, on Sundays and feast days? How could I say to Him: Blessed art Thou, Eternal, Master of the Universe, Who chose us from among the races to be tortured day and night, to see our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, end in the crematory? Praised by

Thy Holy Name, Thou Who has chosen us to be butchered on Thine altar? (64).

He saw thousands of men, women, and children dying everywhere he

turned; where was God then? When his father fell ill with

dysentery, where was God when all the old man wanted was a drink

of water, knowing full well it would kill him?

When horrible things happen, and we are pulled away from

our families, who else is there to turn to but God? The

Almighty being intended to protect and serve us no longer bears

a name. He becomes a fleeting memory of something we once knew

well. Elie was deported with nothing but his love for family

and his faith in God. When he sees the terror galloping blindly

about him, his faith is all but gone.

With this comes a loss of faith in humanity in general.

God is intended to represent all beings–how, then, are people

being slaughtered right before Elie s eyes? As Elie s faith in

God fades away, so does his faith in himself and his father.

Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my

soul and turned my dreams to dust (32). There is nothing left

for Elie. Initially, the only thing that mattered was to remain

near his father. As time wears on, and the horrors of the war

become more and more evident to Elie, he is less concerned with

the well-being of Chlomo. And my father? Suddenly, I

remembered him (67). Elie begins to think more of himself than

his father. For example, Chlomo asks a gypsy where the

lavatories are. The gypsy looks at him, and hits Elie s father

with such force that Chlomo falls to the ground and crawls back

to his place in line. Elie says, I did not move. What had

happened to me? My father had just been struck, before my very

eyes, and I had not flickered an eyelid. Yesterday, I should

have sunk my nails into the criminal s flesh. Had I changed so

much. . .? (37). Indeed he has. Elie no longer feels that he

has to live by the Golden Rule because of his lack of belief.

Near the close of the novel, Elie s father falls ill, and

in his heart, Elie feels somewhat relieved. He feels guilty in

his hopes that this will be the end. When his father does pass

away, he cannot cry. I did not weep and it pained me that I

could not weep. But I had no more tears. And, in the depths of

my being, in the recesses of my weakened conscience, could I

have searched it, I might have perhaps found something

like–free at last! (106).

Elie Wiesel is placed into the trial of his life. He has

nothing left; his faith is gone, as is his father. Inside he is

alone with no one left to depend on but himself. As one man

puts it, Hitler is the only one who has kept all of his

promises (43). Certainly in Elie s mind, God has not kept His

promises. As this becomes clear to Elie, he begins to turn his

back on his father like God has done to Elie. These two things

are most definitely parallel. Elie has become a walking corpse,

devoid of all emotion like those around him. Night. No one

prayed, so that the night would pass quickly. The stars were

only sparks of the fire which devoured us. Should that fire die

out one day, there would be nothing left in the sky but dead

stars, dead eyes (18).