The Struggle For Freedom In Elie Wiesel's Novel Night

Register to read the introduction… Many had the realization that freedom was only through their death, so they forfeited their lives and took the hopes out of many. Individuals are capable of both love and greatness, but to go along with that, they’re also capable of cruelty and evil. In “Night” evil conquered all and Elie’s main struggle for freedom was competing to escape from evil. Escaping evil was Elie’s only freedom. Even though Elie escaped, he still had the horrific memories. He said when he looked himself in the mirror, “From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me” (Wiesel 115). The Nazis seized Elie’s life as well as many other Jews way before their concrete death. By life I mean his freedom because you are not living if you do not live a free life. So the struggle for freedom did not end when Elie escaped, he will forever be struggling to reclaim the life and reclaim the beliefs he once had before he was captured. Along with struggling for freedom to live, sometimes in society certain people are just struggling for freedom to be accepted. Not because of the type of person they are, but for their looks and their religious background. This can lead to quite a struggle for freedom in a sense of overcoming a society that does not accept diversity. A person who had to struggle in such a society was Malcolm Little, better known as Malcolm …show more content…
He wanted people to be treated as the person they were, not by the color of their skin. He articulates that in this society, whites do not give blacks the chance to become who they want to become. “Hence I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight” (Haley 22). The struggle for freedom for blacks does not start with blacks themselves, it starts with whites being able to accept blacks in society. When Malcolm claims that blacks can’t “stand up under the weight”, he refers to whites punishing and afflicting blacks for standing up for what they believe is right, and that is equal rights. By equal rights, they mean not just on paper, they want whites to start respecting blacks as a whole. With that said, the struggle continued for blacks in …show more content…
He knew that there was bad in the world. White people did not understand this concept of Malcolm’s. After Malcolm realized that blacks were not gaining any ground, he decided to change his approach. He strongly believes that preaching about how unruly whites were was now an obstacle for achieving equal rights. In his autobiography he states “I’ve had enough of someone else’s propaganda…I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole” (Haley 373). In Malcolm’s shocking turn of ideas, he opens the door for whites to converse with blacks about white organizations. While this was a reach, it was the start of a new society. He believed once whites bought into the idea of equal rights that blacks would finally be accepted. The earlier idea that only blacks could improve black lives was abolished and even though the struggle for black freedom continued, the future finally looked somewhat