The Themes Of Guilt And Loss Of Faith In Elie Wiesel’s Night

In the story Night by Elie Wiesel there were many themes. A theme is a story underlying message or big idea. There were two themes that really stuck out and those were Eliezer’s loss of faith and his guilt/ lack of inaction. Guilt is the fact of having committed a specified or implied offense or crime. But inaction is lack of action where some is expected or appropriate. Eliezer was a brilliant and bright young man with great ideas. He also came to very serious realization in this story as well. My goal in this paper is to inform you of how Eliezer slowly began to metamorphose and lose his faith in God and how his guilt/ inaction began to exacerbate him. To achieve this goal, I have split my essay into two sections. In the first section I provide examples of Eliezer’s loss of faith. But in the second section I provide examples of how Eliezer’s guilt/ inaction began to exacerbate him.

There were many examples of guilt / inaction in this story. The first example that will be spoken about in my essay is when Elie wants to believe Moishe the Beadle but can’t because he is worried, he will be looked at contradictory than the others. As the author admits “I have been saved miraculously. I managed to get back here. Where did I get my strength from? I wanted to come back to Sighet to tell you the story of my death. So, you could prepare yourselves while there was still time… I wanted to come back, and to warn you. And see how it is, no one will listen to me…”. The second example is when Elie is mad at the SS men for treating the dead bodies with no respect at all. The way they treat the dead goes in contrast to Elie’s view of human rights. As the author admits “Twenty bodies were thrown out of our wagon. Then the train resumed its journey leaving behind it a few hundred naked dead, deprived of burial, in the deep snow of a field in Poland”. The final point of guilt/ inaction is when Elie had to watch as his father is moribund. Elie wants to help his father, but he cannot. As the author states “Don’t let me find him! If only I could get rid of this dead weight, so that I could use all my strength to struggle for my own survival, and only worry about myself. Immediately I felt ashamed of myself, ashamed forever”. Even though there are things Elie wants to do, he cannot, due to certain consequences. These points built up to his guilt / inaction in the story.

But along with guilt / inaction there was also another theme in this story. That is Eliezer’s loss of faith. The loss of faith was portrayed in proportionate contrasting occasions. The first example is when he struggles mentally and physically for life and no longer believes in a God. As the author states “Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes” (Wiesel 34). An additional example of Eliezer’s loss of faith is when Eliezer worked so hard to save himself and asks God several times to take him out of his despondency. As the author states “Why should I sanctify his name? The almighty, the eternal, and terrible master of the Universe chose to be silent…”. The triennial example is when the Germans would kill the Jews and Eliezer does not know why God could let anything such as this happen. As the author states “I was not denying his existence, but I doubted his absolute justice…”. The following example of guilt / inaction is when Eliezer’s family ended up having to dichotomize at the concentration camp and you could obviously tell that he had no hope to ever see them again. As the author states “Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever…”. The ultimate example that will be used is my essay is about Eliezer’s elderly father. Eliezer realizes that his father did not have the strength to fight for himself anymore and Eliezer knows that it is too late to save him. As the author states “In this place every man has to fight for himself and you cannot think of others. Not even your father…”. At that point Eliezer loses hope, trust and his beliefs.

In the story Night by Elie Wiesel there were many themes. A theme is a story underlying message or big idea. There were two themes that really stuck out and those were Eliezer’s loss of faith and his guilt/ lack of inaction. Guilt is the fact of having committed a specified or implied offense or crime. But inaction is lack of action where some is expected or appropriate. My goal in this paper was to inform you of how Eliezer slowly began to metamorphose and lose his faith in God and how his guilt/ inaction began to discommode him. This story was an exemplar showing of what the offspring of Jews had to go through at that time. This story will give you a completely different showing of the Holocaust just when you think that you have figured out the whole phenomenon something else happens.