Universal Themes In Elie Wiesel's Night
In Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, there are three main universal themes that are addressed; religious beliefs, inhumanity towards other humans, and the importance of father-son bonds.
Throughout the beginning of his memoir, he shows a strong understanding with his belief in God, and how God has and will teach him everything there is in the world. A world without God is a world not worth living in for him. Throughout his childhood struggles, any problems that he encounters are always fixed with a sign from God.
But after being placed in a concentration camp, he begins to notice the lack of signs or symbols from God and he soon begins to doubt his existence. The silence from God eventually turns into a Wiesel questioning his commitments to
God in the past, and whether it is worth it to continue waiting for a sign from God.
Along with the silence from God, he is also very clearly shaken by the way humans treat others around him, whether strangers or family members. Almost all the prisoners that he saw around him never once took account of what they were doing to other people, because their own survival was the only thing that was on their mind.
Prisoners were without a doubt, willing to take the lives of others in order to improve their chances of survival, from fighting to the death for a crumb of bread to shamelessly putting people into a crematorium, mercy was not something that could be found in Wiesel’s situation.
While some people lacked all their human characteristics by the end of these situations, it was something that Wiesel did differently in order to survive his struggles. In the memoir, there are many times where Wiesel is able to describe the atrocities that other sons have committed toward their fathers and how he could never think about doing such acts towards his own father.
Many other sons took advantage of their fathers, and sacrificed them for their own benefit. But Wiesel promised to do the exact opposite, he would sacrifice himself for the safety and survival of both himself and his father. This demonstrated that Wiesel’s love for his father and his own solidarity was a much stronger force in survival than the instinct of self-preservation in others.
Throughout the beginning of his memoir, he shows a strong understanding with his belief in God, and how God has and will teach him everything there is in the world. A world without God is a world not worth living in for him. Throughout his childhood struggles, any problems that he encounters are always fixed with a sign from God.
But after being placed in a concentration camp, he begins to notice the lack of signs or symbols from God and he soon begins to doubt his existence. The silence from God eventually turns into a Wiesel questioning his commitments to
God in the past, and whether it is worth it to continue waiting for a sign from God.
Along with the silence from God, he is also very clearly shaken by the way humans treat others around him, whether strangers or family members. Almost all the prisoners that he saw around him never once took account of what they were doing to other people, because their own survival was the only thing that was on their mind.
Prisoners were without a doubt, willing to take the lives of others in order to improve their chances of survival, from fighting to the death for a crumb of bread to shamelessly putting people into a crematorium, mercy was not something that could be found in Wiesel’s situation.
While some people lacked all their human characteristics by the end of these situations, it was something that Wiesel did differently in order to survive his struggles. In the memoir, there are many times where Wiesel is able to describe the atrocities that other sons have committed toward their fathers and how he could never think about doing such acts towards his own father.
Many other sons took advantage of their fathers, and sacrificed them for their own benefit. But Wiesel promised to do the exact opposite, he would sacrifice himself for the safety and survival of both himself and his father. This demonstrated that Wiesel’s love for his father and his own solidarity was a much stronger force in survival than the instinct of self-preservation in others.