Elie Wiesel's Night

“Sustainability is the key to our survival on this planet and will also determine success on all levels ”-Shari Arison. “Night” by Elie wiesel was published on september 1960. This book is about a boy named Elie, he and his family are Jewish. This was during the time wee Hitler was in charge and he wanted to make sure all Jews were gone. Germans thought they were superior and that they were suppose to be the only people in the world. Elie goes through a lot because of this, he has to go on some very unfortunate and terrible rides, he separates from his family and he goes to a concentration camp. In the camp he has horrible experiences. He is treated as a slave and he constantly is fighting for his life. He fights for his life through
the very end even through all the changes he went through. The emotional cost of survival is a high price to pay. People trying to survive horrible situations pay with their emotional and mental health
.
One of the ways that the theme is demonstrated in “Night” is when Elie was separated, along with the rest of the jewish community, in a part of the town considered “the ghetto”.
They had to be there, away from others waiting for their destiny. They lived cramped giving shelter to their family and friends that had no where to stay within the ghetto. Afterwards, they had to evacuate their homes because they were being deported. They went on this terrible train ride with no food, no water, and no space to even breathe All the Jews from that town were in this train, they were all going crazy and they were dying slowly and painfully without water. Elie tried to stay strong through all of this, for his family and himself. He felt himself change when thing started to go wrong but he only thought of surviving. I think that Elie was a very strong person, he never gave up. He was sick and he was mentally harmed with everything he had to go through, including that train ride, but he still tried his best to stay strong and to keep going. “After two days of traveling, we began to be tortured by thirst. Then the heat became unbearable” (21). They were only two days in and they were already dying of thirst. They were on this ride for much longer without any water. In conclusion Elie suffered a lot, and he kept going. In order to keep his life he went through things most boys don’t go
through.

A second way that the theme is demonstrated in “Night” is when The Kapos would continuesly beat the Jews. They had to sit through these beatings and they had to deal with it because they had no one to stand up for them. I honestly do not see the point of beating them, they were doing what they were told and if they didn’t it was because it was unfair. They already had to deal with enough then they had to deal with the abuse. “The kapos beat us once more, but i had ceased to feel any pain from the blows.” (34) The kapos had beat them so many times that Elie had just gotten used to the pain and he eventually stopped fighting it. Also after hitting them they were forced to do things like run naked and do labor. In conclusion, Elie and other took the beatings, they went through that because some thought it was better than death.

The third and final way that the theme is demonstrated in “Night” is when Elie got his gold crown taken after he and his father were tortured by someone who wanted it, Franek. Franek wanted Elies old crown because he thought it would be valuable in the long run. Elie did not want to give it up because it was one of the very few things he had left. He also thought it could help him later on once he was out the camp. Franek did not give up and he went after Elie where it hurt him the most, his father. He tortured Elies father y making him do something he knew he couldn’t do. Elie eventually gave up his crown because he thought it was more valuable to keep his and his fathers life. “We could not stand any more. We had to give in.” (53) . Elie is basically explaining how he could not handle the torture anymore so he decided to just give up his gold crown. In conclusion, Elie gave up everything he had left in order to stay alive. Even if his things were valuable to him he had to give them up.

In conclusion, the emotional cost of survival is a high price to pay. People trying to survive horrible situations pay with their emotional and mental health. Eli had to pay with his health. He went through very dramatic experiences and that made him emotional and it also left him scars in and out. Imagine being a boy , a boy , and being forced to grow up & work and be beaten. Imagine the trauma he still has. Just imagine.