Theme Of Faith In Night

Loss of Faith and Father Son Relationship in Night Relationships come with religion and relationships come with family. Unfortunately, Elie Wiesel and his father don’t get the luxury of both at the same time. Elie Wiesel wrote a memoir, Night , about his life before and during the Holocaust. In said memoir, he writes about himself, his father, the concentration camps, and all the death he had to bear witness to. As time drags on, Wiesel loses his faith. The more faith he loses, the closer he becomes with his father; however, that doesn’t stop the concentration camps from changing him and his thoughts into thinking that maybe having his father around isn’t the best for him after all.
Wiesel includes a seemingly minor statement right away to …show more content…
The Jews kept their faith, but were scared when it was announced that they would start being deported. Wiesel and his father finally start to somewhat connect as they are in the midst of deportation. When they arrive at Birkenau, Wiesel has one goal. He states, “My hand shifted on my father’s arm. I had one thought—not to lose him. Not to be left alone” (27). Wiesel’s father very quickly became the only thing he had left. The people at Birkenau had started wanting to revolt, but some of the elders stated, “You must never lose faith, even when the sword hangs over your head” (Wiesel 29). Not much has yet happened other than the Jews seeing the flames from the crematorium, so they still attempt to keep their faith. If they pray and believe enough, maybe everything will be okay. When they see babies being thrown into the crematorium, people start to weep and Wiesel writes, “For the first time, I felt revolt rise up in me. 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?” (31) Here is when Wiesel starts to lose his faith; seeing babies thrown into the crematoriums would be traumatizing to anyone. Wiesel then goes on to say a page later, “Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever” (32). A short time after they get situated in Birkenau, Wiesel is asked if he wants to move into a good unit; he replies with, “I certainly do. But on one condition: I want to stay with my father” (46). At this point in time his loss of faith is evident to be increasing as the relationship with his father grows stronger. This theme becomes apparent throughout the entirety of the book. Although Wiesel never clearly states his reasoning for wanting to stay with his father, his father evidently comes to be the only important thing left in his