Night Blog 2

Focus Question: How do Elie's experiences during the Holocaust change him as a person?

          In Night Elie's beliefs in God are very strong before the Holocaust. At the beginning of the story he says, "Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?" This shows how he was so into his religion, that it was like second nature to him. He is saying how you breathe unconsciously, like there's something telling you to breathe all the time, and for him it was the same, however with his religion and praying as well. However, as he is taken to each of the concentration camps, his faith in God starts to become less and less, until to him, God is non existent. In the book he says, "I too had become a different person. The student of Talmud, the child I was, had been consumed by the flames. He meant that by seeing all the horrors around him, the harsh labor, the kids and adults being put into the crematories, all of it had made him doubt that there was no god.

        Also in Night Elie's values of family become, stronger. For example in the story it says, "And I started to hit him harder and harder. At last, my father half opened his eyes. They were glassy. He was breathing faintly." This shows how throughout his experiences leading him to that moment, they were always together. However when he thought his father was going to die, like all children they get scared. As to the reason why he hit his father so hard until he woke up, so they wouldn't have to separated. Since his father was Elie's sole reason for continuing to live.

*Spoilers*

        After all of these experiences and changes Elie goes through, he ends up mentally and physically dead. At the end of the book he says, "From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me." This shows how after everything he had been through, there was no way he would ever be the same. How seeing so many die, how knowing his father had died, but not even saying goodbye, knowing that his mother and litter sister had also died with out him saying goodbye must had crushed him in a way I hopefully will never know.