Like the philosopher Pilo says, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” For some, it is a struggle to fit into societal norms; for others, it is a struggle to meet personal goals. In events like the Holocaust, it is a battle between life and death. Elie Wiesel, author of the award-winning memoir Night, shares the account of his struggle alongside his father, who both had suffered greatly during their time spent at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Elie, fifteen, and his father, fifty, were both boarded on a train with the rest of their Jewish family. Together, they journeyed to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where they were forced to stay for one year under harsh physical, emotional, and psychological conditions within
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Food is limited, space is little, and individuality is nonexistent. Each and every day consisted of hoping more food, nourishment, something to eat - Little else mattered at such a dark point. However, to Elie’s father, it was not food that he sought, but rather that his son was alive and well. Although frail, Elie’s father is still able to sacrifice his own well-being in order to provide for his son’s health. As Elie recalls, “I was terribly hungry and swallowed my ration on the spot...Seeing that his advice had come too late, and that there was nothing left of my ration, he didn’t even start his own. ‘Me, I’m not hungry,’ he said” (Page 44). Under the crippling conditions of age and starvation, it is no secret that Elie’s father is beginning to meet his limits day by day at the work camp. However, he still puts his son first without a second doubt, giving him his only ration of food. This may at first seem like a fatherly instinct, but upon further analysis it can be predicted that his father may actually be putting Elie first because he is aware of his own failing health, and knows that he will eventually perish; therefore, his resources can be put into his son to increase his chances of survivability, so that he can carry on his family line. The harsh reality: Later in the story, he attempts to give his plastic spoon to Elie, a last reminder of him, and the only item that would prove he once existed. The events he suffers now act much like a foreshadowing to the events later on in the story, and heavily reflects on his personal outlook towards himself; he does not put himself first. Although appearing to be sweet and fatherly, in due time it will cause his own
Food is limited, space is little, and individuality is nonexistent. Each and every day consisted of hoping more food, nourishment, something to eat - Little else mattered at such a dark point. However, to Elie’s father, it was not food that he sought, but rather that his son was alive and well. Although frail, Elie’s father is still able to sacrifice his own well-being in order to provide for his son’s health. As Elie recalls, “I was terribly hungry and swallowed my ration on the spot...Seeing that his advice had come too late, and that there was nothing left of my ration, he didn’t even start his own. ‘Me, I’m not hungry,’ he said” (Page 44). Under the crippling conditions of age and starvation, it is no secret that Elie’s father is beginning to meet his limits day by day at the work camp. However, he still puts his son first without a second doubt, giving him his only ration of food. This may at first seem like a fatherly instinct, but upon further analysis it can be predicted that his father may actually be putting Elie first because he is aware of his own failing health, and knows that he will eventually perish; therefore, his resources can be put into his son to increase his chances of survivability, so that he can carry on his family line. The harsh reality: Later in the story, he attempts to give his plastic spoon to Elie, a last reminder of him, and the only item that would prove he once existed. The events he suffers now act much like a foreshadowing to the events later on in the story, and heavily reflects on his personal outlook towards himself; he does not put himself first. Although appearing to be sweet and fatherly, in due time it will cause his own