Father and Son Relationship in Night Elie Wiesel Essay Example

📌Category: Literature, Short Stories
📌Words: 685
📌Pages: 3
📌Published: 27 June 2021

Elie Wiesel wrote and published “Night,” the story that elaborates on the relationship between a father and a son. Elie Wiesel writes about how the Holocaust makes the relationship between a father and a son stronger. Elie’s father spend so much of his time and invests himself in the community, and Elie spends time focusing on his religious studies: initially, the two do not have much time for each other. They become closer during their experiences in the concentration camps. Elie and his father encounter separation, hardship, and death, but these experiences ultimately lead them to become closer before their final separation.

Elie and his father have always been separated due to their busy lives. Elie has focused on studying about his religion, and his father has stayed busy within the Jewish community making sure that community members are cared for and secure. Elie’s father is considered an important man within the Jewish community. Elie Wiesel states, “The jewish community of Sighet held him in the highest esteem” (4). Elie’s father has spent most of his time in the community helping the other families, even though he has his own home to tend to. In the meantime, Elie remains so focused on trying to find someone to help him with his religious studies that his father’s absence does not phase him at the time. Elie Wiesel states, “I succeeded on my own in finding a master for myself in the person of Moishe the Beadle” (4). The two men are so busy going on about their lives that they do not see what is ahead. Elie begins to feel as though he has left his father behind him or has forgotten his father while he is in search of spiritual guidance.

Once Elie and his father are captured and are brought into the concentration camp, their relationship starts to change. Elie begins to focus on the wellbeing of his father instead of focusing just on himself. Elie Wiesel states, “And my father? I first thought of him now. How would he pass selection? He had aged so much” (70). Elie begins to develop a strategy to get his father through the selection process. Elie knows that if his father does not pass the selection process, they will be separated forever. Elie and his father’s relationship begins to get stronger though they face hardships daily that test their strength. Elie’s father makes an impact on him while in the concentration camp. Wiesel states, “My father’s presence was the only thing that stopped me. He was running next to me, out of breath, out of strength, desperate” (86). Even though Elie sees his father wanting to give up, Elie cannot allow either himself or his father to give in because he sees the perseverance of his father. In the book, Wiesel expresses that even if one’s life ends, the love for others will remain the same. 

As the days grow longer and colder, Elie begins to notice how weak his father is becoming. Wiesel states , “My father was getting weaker. His eyes were watery, his face the color of dead leaves” (107). Elie knows that his father’s days are getting short, and he begins to comfort his father to help make his transition easier. Elie begins to lose hope when he realizes that there is no help coming for his father. Blockalteste makes a statement that the “doctor cannot do anything more for him. And neither can you” (110). On January 29th, 1945, Elie realizes that his father is not present anymore. He cannot weep even though it pains him. Elie begins to say, “Free at last” (112): he know that without the burden of his father, he is a free man. Even though Elie is lost at the thought of his father’s death, he knows that he must continue to persevere and struggle for his own life.

By examining Elie and his father’s relationship, even though they face  separation, hardship, and death, they continue to strengthen their relationship until the very end. Elie has unconditional love for his father even though he wants  to leave him on many occasions. Elie’s love for his father allows him to take care of his father in his final days. “Night” shows how a father and a son’s relationship becomes stronger throughout the experience of living in a concentration camp together. Elie and his father become inseparable because they learn to live for each other.

 

+
x
Remember! This is just a sample.

You can order a custom paper by our expert writers

Order now
By clicking “Receive Essay”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement. We will occasionally send you account related emails.