Father Son Relationship In Night By Elie Wiesel

Superior Essays
Human instincts are what keep people alive in dire situations — they’re what motivate people to do things they normally would never think of doing; however, this instinct also gives people power to disregard typical societal norms, which sometimes allows people to discard their emotional bonds with others. Such instances have taken place throughout history, leaving survivors who miraculously outlived their hardships. One particular instance is in the novel Night, where Holocaust survivor Elie Weisel recounts his experience in the Auschwitz concentration camp. His story, though innocent at first, slowly becomes more horrifying and emotionally tolling as his surroundings worsen. He, like countless others, has to discard his societal norms and emotional bonds in favor of his own survival; this manifests in his relationship with his father. …show more content…
In Night, Weisel depicts a father-son relationship that began as respectful and distant; however, the terrors of Auschwitz closed that distance, reversing the parental roles and giving them a strengthened familial bond — a bond that apathy would ultimately replace in favor of Weisel’s fear for his own life. Weisel’s relationship with his father in Night begins as respectful, distant, and largely lacking any conventional affections that would be considered necessary for a relationship. Their relationship lacked emotional depth — Weisel didn’t bond with his father because he was “more involved with the welfare of others” and “rarely displayed his feelings” (4). Emotions are easily and normally shown on people’s faces, partly as a way to show what they’re thinking. Naturally, it would be hard to form a bond with someone who didn’t display emotions — one uses emotions as a gauge for how close they are to someone; people tend to talk about and show their thoughts to someone when they become close to them. Crying in particular is something reserved for the closest of relationships. It means a person cares enough about someone — and that that person cares enough about them — to show themselves in their most vulnerable state. People don’t typically see their parents show great emotional distress, but they usually know they feel emotions to the same extent. This was the opposite case with Weisel and his father; when the Hungarian police took the Jews to the new ghetto, Weisel “saw him cry” for the first time, which was something he “never thought . . . possible” (19). Parents tend to refrain from crying around their children to make them feel more secure. However, once those children reach a certain age, they realize their parents are emotional humans, just like themselves. They realize their parents are capable of tears. The fact that this realization never dawned upon Weisel means that he never got close enough to his father to be able to discern emotions from him; they hadn’t established an emotional bond with each other at this point. Upon arriving …show more content…
Weisel became his father’s caretaker, thinking less of himself and more of “[being] separated from [his] father” (82). His affection for his father had grown to the point of a parental type of care; he knew he was in a dangerous place, but thought of his father’s survival instead of his own. This exemplifies his care for his father, powerful enough to override his most basic instincts. His newfound bond with his father caused him to become more of a father figure to his own father, reversing their parental roles. He showed this change when he described his father’s emaciated form as “childlike[,] weak, frightened,¨ and ¨vulnerable” (105). At this point in the book, on the journey to Buchenwald, he sees his father as someone he needed to take care of. Weisel feels the need to take care of his father, putting his father’s needs before his more self-concerning thoughts. One instance is when the Jews stop in the snow and receive coffee, and Weisel “[fights his] way to the coffee cauldron like a wild beast” (106). Here, Weisel throws away his conventional decency, just as many others did during the Holocaust — however, he differs from others because his drive to save his father’s life causes his desperation. Previously, he never acted that way to get food for himself. Again, Weisel shows a higher prioritization of his father’s life over his

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