Death In Elie Wiesel's Night

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Thesis: Elie Wiesel's experience with death and suffering inside the concentration camps, as recorded in his memoir Night, directly results in noticeable changes, such as diminished faith in God, lost sense of self, and a desensitized attitude toward the horrors he encounters. It is human nature, when faced with foreign concepts and troubling images, to respond by adapting to this new environment. Elizer (Elie) Wiesel, a young Jew from Sighet, is put into this position when he becomes a prisoner at various concentration camps. Here he is exposed to the harsh realities of the Holocaust. Lost faith, skewed sense of self, and an increasingly desensitized attitude are just some of the many ways in which Elie changes as a character throughout …show more content…
At many points during the story, Wiesel notes his changes in behavior towards sensitive subjects. This is meant to show how much impact living in the concentration camps’ horrific conditions can have on people. A perfect example of this change in Elie comes when he mentions that " The thousands who died daily at Auschwitz and Birkenau in the crematory ovens no longer troubled me" (Wiesel 59). The practice of burning living humans is hardly easy to comprehend, but seeing how Elie is unaffected by this disturbing image shows how cold and emotionless he has become. Despite "thousands" of prisoners being killed in such a brutal way, Elie remains unphased because he is now accustomed to these horrific sights. Even something as inhumane as the "crematory ovens" cannot make Elie feel sympathetic. He has already encountered so many hardships that nothing ever "troubled" him in the concentration camps again. Becoming increasingly desensitized is just one of the many ways in which Elie Wiesel develops and changes throughout the book. Elie is held hostage as a Holocaust prisoner for so long that ends up becoming less faithful in his religion, less sensitive to violence, and lost when it comes to understanding himself. These changes in Elie are a direct result of the atrocious sights linked with concentration camps in the novel Night. Elie leaves Sighet a youthful boy and ends up a corpse after liberation from Buchenwald. This overwhelming transformation is just one of many, but it truly illustrates the evils of the Holocaust and its effects on millions of innocent
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