Night by Elie Weisel - Essay Example

Number] Night Topic: The Relationship between Eliezer and his Father. Night is written by Elie Wiesel and it is narrated by Eliezer. The story is about the holocaust which is described through the perspective of Eliezer who suffered severe conditions at the hands of the Nazis. The story described various conditions and events that happened at that time but they are described particularly in Eliezer’s personal opinions and perceptions about the happenings. The story stresses on the main character of Eliezer and his father; and apparently they are the only two important characters of this story.

Eliezer and his father are separated from his mother and sisters and brought as prisoners where they suffer dreadful conditions. The story opens up to the feelings of Eliezer, his faith in God, and how his relationship particularly changed with his father throughout the novel. As Eliezer goes on to suffer some of the worst scenarios of the holocaust, he develops a strange relationship with his father. The only perception of his father is what he narrates himself, thus the readers do not know what the father thinks or feels.

Throughout the novel, it is evident that his father, Shlomo, remains a constant factor that is with him at all times. His father is an old, emotional man, who loved Eliezer and is totally dependent on him for support. As the story begins, Eliezer starts to suffer at the hands of the Nazis, and that slowly gets him to lose his faith in God. He and his father survive the severe conditions together and he helps his old father as much as he can. Even though the cruelties have led Eliezer to lose faith in God and trust in all the people around him, he manages to maintain the bond of love that he has for his father.

He thinks of his father and cares for him as he says “I was thinking of my father. He must have suffered more than I did” (Wiesel 56). Even though he sees many people in his camp that beat their fathers and abuses them out of frustration, he controls his fears and lets the father-son relationship be the factor that keeps him struggling. He also prays to the Lord to give him strength to never do what other children have done to their fathers. However, there is a time in the story when Eliezer explains his experience with some worse conditions.

He faces intense situations which breaks him to pieces and takes away all the love, care, patience, and faith from his heart. In fact, there are many moments in the story when Eliezer describes his numb feeling towards his father and then how he tries to wash it away. At one occasion he says “I stood petrified. What had happen to me? My father had just been struck, in front of me, and I had not even blinked. I had watched and kept silent.” (Wiesel 39)His father is the character in the novel which reminds him of his family, of love, and of the life he had outside the holocaust.

Despite all the negativity that he has around him and inside him, he managed to maintain the bond with his father and retains the strong love for the old man. At the end of novel when his father dies, he says “After my father’s death, nothing could touch me anymore” (Wiesel 107). Work CitedWiesel Elie. Night. USA: Bantam, 1982. Print.