Elie Wiesel Inhumanity

Wiesel addresses the theme of mankind’s inhumanity towards others as he recounts the event on a passenger ship involving the Parisian woman and the native children fighting for a coin in the water. He connects this moment to the horrific scene on the train where men fought to death for scraps of food and German soldiers laughed. We humans can sometimes be the most inhumane, from all the destruction we cause to the pain and suffering we create.
When one decides to throw everything away in order to obtain something, it’s an instinct. Most humans have a reflex and common assumption that only the fittest survive in the world. When encountering a situation that determines life or death, the majority would do anything to live. Wiesel refers to the
men fighting for the bread as “beasts of prey unleashed” (Section 7) because they had this animalistic look in their eyes as they trampled, tore, and mauled each other. The often unseen side of a human that comes out almost seems surreal to the extent that it seems like a dream or a joke. However, the truth is that humanity is a monster, we’ll tear each other apart, betray, and even destroy one another for the sake of our own living or success. Everyone else on the sidelines either become concerned, are neutral, or laugh in mockery for the idiotic idea that someone would be capable of doing something that insane. In a sense, mankind is deadly and destructive, we’ll try to build something up, whether it be physical or not, but we’ll always destroy something else, for better or for worse.
Another characteristic that makes people inhumane is being a bystander.
There are some people who get involved with helping others, but most would do nothing but watch. In most occasions it’s because, you would try to help, but you’re unable to make yourself do something. Many people would avoid these things and do what they can to survive themselves. Mankind often does things for the sake of themselves or their loved ones. They make changes from afar to keep unaffected. In the memoir when it mentions, “A crowd of workmen and curious passersby had formed along the train”(Section 7), Wiesel is referring to the ones who only spectate because it’s always assumed that we generic normal people can’t do anything. Everyone has a creature inside them whether they like it or not. There are things we can’t control because it’s just how we are. In our society, sometimes being inhumane is what makes us human, because we are all monsters inside.
Often more times than not, people lose themselves to instincts. Wiesel brings up a theme in the memoir to explain and bring the idea up to readers about mankind being inhumane to others. They are capable of doing several things for the sake of their own lives and become a demon that sometimes at a point, one would have never thought
existed.