Father Son Roles In Night By Elie Wiesel

From the beginning of the book to the end of this section, it strikes me of how changed Elie and his Jewish companions have become. The instances when Idek attacks Elie for personal reasons, how Franek extorts Elie for his gold tooth, and how Elie lacks sympathy towards some Jews in some instances is part of a bigger picture in my eyes of how the Holocaust destroyed these civilized people to a state-of-nature-like beings. Elie also lacks sympathy for his father after being attacked by Idek, which I believe is part of a bigger picture of father-son roles. Elie mentions a few times in the memoir how sons had somewhat betrayed and disrespected their fathers. I think Elie Wiesel talks about these instances for a couple of different reasons. First, to show how the Jews are also responsible for hurting themselves and for being selfish in times that they needed to be united. Second, to show that the Holocaust was so evil that it could destroy the special bond between a father and son. …show more content…
He alone has kept his promises, all his promises to the Jewish people.” I think what this means is that Hitler had promised to take out Jewish people, and he has been closer to completing this than the Allies to stop the genocide, or God to save the Jews. What I also think this may mean is that the Nazis have taken the role of God to the Jews in the eyes of Wiesel. The way Wiesel sees it, the Nazis chose who would live and die, who would do what, and offered the only sense of justice about what would happen to certain Jews (even though it was