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JT Ferebee

Ms. Crowell

Advanced Composition

2 May 2017

Elie Wisel

Elie Wisels Night is a memoir that was written by a Jew named Ellie Wiesel. The

memoir is about Elie and the horrible experiences he had in the concentration camps during

WWII. He separates from his mother and sisters immediately when they reach Auschwitz.

Wiesel and his father stay together until his father dies of dysentery when they are almost free.

Throughout his time in the camps he changes spiritually, physically, and emotionally, questioning

his faith in god, losing emotion, and becoming physically unhealthy. These changes cause Elie to

change as a man and change how he looks at the humanity.

At the beginning of the story Elie is way more spiritually mature than any other Jewish

teenage-agers. He studies the Talmud by day and the Kabbalah by night and he wants to become

a mystic even though his father tells him he is too young to study that kind of stuff. Before going

to the camps Elie is constantly praying to God and he cries while praying. When his friend

Moishe asks why he prays Elie responds with, Why did I live, why did I breathe? (4) . But, that

faith in god slowly fades when him and his family reach the first camp. When they arrive around

midnight they can smell something burning and they describe it as burning flesh. After him and

his father separate from his mom and sister they see a truck stop at a ditch that is roaring with

flames. What they see next is what really starts to fill Elie with anger. When the men unload
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the truck, Elie sees babies being thrown into the fiery ditch. After seeing this Ellie says, For the

first time I felt anger rising within me. Why should I sanctify his name? The Almighty, the

eternal and terrible Master of the universe, chose to be silent. What is there to thank him for?

(33). Elie questions why he should praise god and thank him for anything and that is much

different than how he praised to God at home in Sighet. Elie also questions God when he talks

about men talking about Gods mysterious ways and the redemption to come but Elie seems to

disagree. He says, As for me, I ceased to pray (45). This is a huge spiritual change for Elie

because praying was such a role in his life before and now he does not even attempt to pray to

God. Elie goes from praying multiple times a day to not even praying and questioning God. This

is not the Elie that lived in the ghetto and studied the Jewish religion all day. His loss of faith

makes him question God and look at the God he worshiped so much in a very different way.

Elie doesnt just change spiritually, he has emotional changes throughout the time he

spends in the camps. When they first get to the camps his father is all he has and he does

everything he can to stray with him. Elie says, My hand tightens its grip on my father. All I can

think of is not to lose him. Not to remain alone. (30) . But, as they spend more and more time in

the camp his father is getting weaker and weaker and has dysentery. Eventually Elie is stronger

physically and mentally than his father. He tries to keep his father alive as much as he can but as

time goes on Elie starts to have thoughts about how much better off he would be alone, saying

If only I didnt find him. If I relieved myself of this responsibility (106). Elie would have

never even let that thought cross his find on that first day they arrived at the camp. But, now he

has realized that to survive you have to think about your own life before helping another person.

Elie is told by a guard that he is better off trying to get through the camp alone instead of having
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the weight of someone else on him. Elie never wants to have these thoughts about going on with

out his dad but as the story goes on it crosses his mind more. Elie hates the idea of it, but it still

crosses his mind.

The concentration camps consisted of hard labor and horrific mistreatment. Elie and his

family have to tolerate horrible climates and are given very little food and water. While Elie and

his family are on the train going to Auschwitz he must endure the heat and thirst on the train.

When he arrives at Auschwitz he is sent to a barber that shaves his hair and officers take all his

clothes. For the first few nights Elie is naked in his barrack. Every day in the concentration

camps Elie gets a ration of bread and soup. Even though it is food, it is extremely small portions

and Elie says, The bread, the soup, those were my entire life (52). During the days, they were

forced to do hard labor with little water and they did not have the proper clothes for the winter

freeze. The temperatures they endured were sometimes below freezing, and with none or little

clothes this was extremely harsh on Elie and other inmates. Possibly the worst part is the long

marches and runs Elie goes through while going from camp to camp, and having to run through

snow with no shoes. While running Elie says, I shivered with every step (86). When Elie is in

the camps he never gets to see what he looks like and he never looks and has no idea how much

different his body looks. When he is finally free and looks in the mirror at the hospital he is at

and he sees himself. He says, From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me

(115). Elie is saying his body is nothing but skin and bones, and it looks dead. That is what the

starving, labor, and marching did to him. It leaves him with nothing but a corpse. His body of

skin and bones reflects how his life is after the camps. He has lost his father, has nowhere to go,

and his life has become nothing. This is obviously a major physical change because before the
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camps he was never starved or put through horrible physical tasks and now he goes through it

every day.

Elies time in the concentration camps changed him in ways he never thought were

possible. The suffering and losses he endured changed him and made him see life differently.

They changed his faith in ways and left him with lasting images in his mind. Elie Wiesels life

was changed due to the things he went through. He goes from wanting to be a mystic to hardly

ever even praying, and he goes from being a healthy young man to being made up of just skin

and bones.