Selfishness In Night By Elie Wiesel

Remember when your first grade teacher said “Always help yourself before others ?” What if that was just a way to cover up the true instincts of humans, selfishness. As caring and considerate as we might look on a day to day basis, in struggle for survival the fastest to bring out their inner instincts win out at the expense of their rivals. Elie Wiesel, in his famous memoir Night showcases the true nature of humans with the character Elie. As we follow Elie through traumatising events during the Holocaust, we see how people are doing anything to stay alive. In the beginning of the memoir, Elie Wiesel showcases the idea that all humans were still acting like humans and that their their true instincts were not forced to be used. The emotions …show more content…
People are burnt alive and worked like animals which challenges the human nature. After experiencing the gruesome events of the Holocaust, people are forced to reveal their true instincts in order to survive. As the Blockalteste says in the middle of Night, “ In this place, it is every man for himself, and you cannot think of others. In this place there is no such thing as a father, brother, and friend (Wiesel 110).” This when the true instinct of the human mind comes out, selfishness. Help others is out of the equation where there is barely enough resources to help yourself. In fact, the only way for a man to stay alive is to put someone else down. Later in the conversation between Elie and Blockalteste, Blockalteste suggest to “Stop giving your ration of bread and soup to your father (Weisel 110).” He further goes on to suggest to “get his rations (Wiesel 110).” This situation supports the thesis directly. If Elie wants a competent chance to make it out of the camp alive, he must sacrifice his father’s life. And as expected, true human instincts are revealed when people are suggested to give up their loved ones in order to benefit …show more content…
We see the change in human behavior due to the traumatic events of the Holocaust. People are forced to kill their loved ones in order to eat. The people that don’t take advantage of others are killed by the ones that do. As humans, our instincts will always be to help ourselves before others. There is no way the Jews could have kept their instincts inside them during the Holocaust. The events were so brutal and cruel that it would be impossible for anyone to live their life as it was before. The instincts were uncontrollable since every single Jew was affected in this time period. After reading the memoir Night, we can see that author Elie Wiesel tries to showcase the theme that humans will always but themselves before