Night Blog

It is easy to tell that Elie has been very changed by the events in the camp. His bond grows closer to his father, he doubts his God, being a very pious person, and his morals kind of change. On page 37 Elie himself says, "The night had passed completely. The morning star shone in the sky. I too had become a different person". It just took one night for Elie to change, and when his father asks to go to the bathroom, and the gypsy slaps his father, Elie didn't do anything. "... He slapped my father with such force that he fell down... I stood petrified. What had happened to me? My father had just been struck... and had not even blinked. Had I changed that much?" (39) Elie said would've protected his father just the day before. But he didn't want to get beaten himself. He began to care more for himself, and didn't want to get in harms way. But he did take very good care of his father, the last piece of hope he had.

He grew less religious, and didn't really pray that much or talk to his God, but he did it occasionally. And he questioned God, he wondered why he was letting this happen, why he didn't save them. "Why, but why would I bless him?...Because He caused thousands of children to burn in his mass graves?...Because in His great might, He had created Auchwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many other factories of death?" (67). Elie was rebelling against his God, losing faith in Him. And for someone who has been very religious, and wanting to learn so much about Him, it was like throwing that all away in the trash. But he still kept some of his religion, and it stayed with him for the rest of his life.

After emerging from the camp when the war was over, Elie had been transformed into a whole new person. He started to worry about when he would eat next more than ever, and his relationship with his father increased dramatically. To the point that without each other, there was nothing to live for anymore. He also doubted his faith, being a very pious boy growing up, and seeing that his God did not save them from the inhumanity the inmates experienced in the concentration camps. And after his father died, all he thought about was food, because his father was his hope, someone to get through the hard times with. He lost all of his family, but luckily survived to tell the story that we know today.

Citation: Wiesel, Elie. Night. N.p.: Hill and Wang, 2006. Print.