In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel Cruelty is shown a lot

In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, Cruelty is shown a lot throughout the novel by using imagery and symbolism. This use of figurative language helps the reader experience Elie’s distress and shows how remorseless the Germans were. This cruelty leads Elie to be torn between self-preservation and saving his father. Throughout the story, the reader can tell Elie is slowly having to make harder and harder choices. Night represents a time of suffering and uncertainty, even for those who are loyal to their god.

Being very loyal to his god, Elie trusts his god but as time passes he loses his faith and questions god.

In the story, the reader can see that Elie is distraught by having to make these decisions about his health and his father. The cruelty from the guards during the Holocaust reveals the deepest parts of human nature that no human should witness. This is shown on page sixty-six when Elie says “One more stab to the heart, one more reason to hate.

One less reason to live.” (Wiesel, 66). This quote resembles the suffering of the people in the concentration camps and how hard it was to be there. Elie makes choices that make him feel non-human and selfish such as choosing to give his ration of food to his father or not.

The relationship between Elie and his father are strong throughout the story and show that instead of being selfish and helping someone lets you live longer in their environment. Every time Elie witnessed someone doing wrong it usually ended in their death.

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This may have been a cause of Elie choosing to be more thoughtful of his decisions and not being greedy. This idea was put in Elie’s mind on page sixty-two when he says “That night, the soup tasted of corpses.” (Wiesel, 62). Elie witnessed a man shot to death as he tried to steal soup and is shown the importance of food that they were being killed over it. The people in these camps were mentally and physically ruined by their experiences and those who lived are permanently damaged.

In chapter four Elie encounters his first experience with the cruelty of the Germans. During the train ride to one of the camps, Elie sees Madam Sch?chter, a middle-aged woman who is on the train with her son. She cracks under the oppressive treatment to which the Jews are also punished. Madam starts to scream that she sees fire and it scares the other Jews and although they see no fire it shows that they don’t know what awaits them at the camp. On page thirty-eight, Elie says “She received several blows to the head, blows that could have been lethal.” (Wiesel, 38). Madam is gagged and beaten to near death, the Jews had experienced so much that they had lost all moral principles and considered violence a viable solution to their problem.

Night represents a time of suffering and uncertainty, even for those who are loyal to their god. Throughout Night by Elie Wiesel, the nighttime is when Elie experiences most of his bad encounters. This is why he named this Novel “Night” because he wanted it to symbolize how he was at his most feeble point during the night. The cruelty given by the guards shows how if influenced by someone they can change someone’s whole moral thoughts. This cruelty also created hatred with followers and their god and caused Elie to question why god hated him. Even though Elie had hard times he persevered because he thought rationally and didn’t let the cruelty get to him.