Night, by Elie Weisel/ Elie’s loss of faith

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“Night” tells a horrific story of the terrifying concentration camp that many people were imprisoned in. Throughout the story the author and many other people had lost their faith in God. There are many examples showing people trying to strengthen their belief in god but afterward there was much more examples showing people rebelling against god and forgetting their religion.

Wiesel wasn’t always so doubtful of his god but after his life changing experience he started questioning this idea of god. Before concentration camp he was an avid learner and was even searching for a teacher in order to teach him more about his faith. Later he sees what the concentration camp is doing to his people. When a prisoner tells Elie’s father that they are on their way to the crematory Elie questions god. “Why should I bless His name? The Eternal, lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank Him for?” (Wiesel 31). Elie thinks of his god as a person that would protect his own people but after seeing so many of his own people killed for no reason his faith was deminishing.

Elie is losing his faith in god day by day and every time he sees another person get killed. He does not under stand why this is happening and if there is a god, then why is he allowing this to happen. When Elie saw children being dumped into a fire he thought to himself “Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever… Never shall I forget these moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust….Never.”(Wiesel 32). As Elie watch those innocent children get burned, his feelings for god were burning away at the same time.

In the end Elie has lost his trust and love for god and finds out he is alone in this cruel world. “This day I ceased to plead….My eyes were open and I was alone-terribly alone in a world without God and without man….I ceased to be anything but ashes, yet I felt myself to be more powerful than the Almighty, to whom my life had been tied to for so long.”(Wiesel 65). After all he has seen throughout the camp he discovers that god is not there to help him or watch over him.

Elie was a very dedicated student and wanted to learn all about the Kabbalah. Then later him and his people were shipped off to a camp to be killed. He saw all sorts of horrific things, he saw children die, people starved, people tortured, and people robbed of their faith. Even though Elie’s faith has been through so much battering, a small portion of him thinks that a god exist “And in spite of myself,a prayer formed inside of me, a prayer to this God in whom I no longer believed”(Wiesel 91). Although Elie is indeed performing a real prayer to his former god I think that he is just desperate and nothing can help him besides a almighty god. Throughout the story there were people who hung onto their god under horrific circumstance and some people who gave up on god at the first test of loyalty. Night is a very powerful book; you can see how and when the character loses his faith and you can understand why.

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