A Short Analysis of Night, a Novel by Elie Wiesel

World War II was a dark time in history, as many people were murdered and irreversibly scarred during the Holocaust. In Night, by Elie Wiesel, the author uses his the changes in Elie's spiritual beliefs to show that adversity challenges faith.

Prior to Elie going to the concentration camp, his faith was unshakable. When explaining how he was trying to find a rabbi to help him study the Kabbalah, Elie says, "I believed profoundly"(Wiesel 3). The diction used shows how dedicated Elie was about his faith. "Profound" is a strong word, and demonstrates the intensity of Elie's beliefs. When Elie began talking to Moshe the Beadle about God, he describes how him and Moshe "would read together, ten times over, the same page of the Zohar" (Wiesel 4). Most 15 year old kids don't study religion that closely, neither then nor today. However, not only did Elie seek out a teacher, they read religious scripts and studied them multiple times, Realizing the magnitude of Elie's faith makes us realize how deeply rooted in his beliefs he was and sets up the story for a stark contrast later on.

During Elie's time in the camp, his faith is heavily challenged. For example, in Auschwitz, when discussing how people would talk about God, Elie reveals "I did not deny God's existence, but I doubted his absolute justice"(Wiesel 34). At this point in the story, Elie has seen many things pertaining to the horror of the Holocaust, as demonstrated through the major changes in his faith. The beginning of the story painted Elie as a very firm believer in the strength of God, compared to how he is doubting in the goodness of the justice of God, which contrasts to the beginning of the story where he believed "profoundly"(Wiesel 3). As the story progresses, Elie sees more and more deaths, and in the commons at the hanging of the sad-eyed Angel someone in the crowd watching says something which compels Elie to reveal his thoughts: "Where is God now?" And I heard a voice within me answer him: "Where is He? Here

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He is-He is hanging here on this gallows..."(Wiesel 48). The deterioration of Elie's faith is synonymous with the declince of the morality of the events in the camp which seem to constantly top each other in immorality. He continually experiences not only people dying, but his innocence, and most important of all, his faith. Elie changes significantly throughout his time at the camps and the shift between his faith before and now in this point of the story is one of the biggest ways that the difference in Elie is shown.

After his father's death, Elie's faith seems to still be in shambles, although not explicitly stated. While in Buchenwald, Elie says, "I have nothing to say of my life during this period. It no longer mattered. After my father's death, nothing could touch me anymore"(Wiesel 82). Elie is so empty at this point that he doesn't speak of his faith.

Whereas before, studying his religion was his main ambition. The lack of emotion that Elie shows indicates how truly broken he is. The bluntness and solemnness Elie shows is indication that his innocence and childhood are ruined. Later, Elie wakes up in the hospital after his fight with food poisoning, looks in the mirror and says "From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me"(Wiesel 83). By the end of all the camps, Elie is so emotionally and spiritually scarred, among other things, that it's easy to assume that his relationship with God is damaged. The regression of his faith throughout the story aligns with the reversal of his physical and emotional condition.

The Holocaust was an especially dark and difficult part of the world's history. People were constantly tested emotionally and spiritually. In Night, by Elie Wiesel, the author uses the changes in Elie's beliefs to prove that adversity challenges faith.

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