Rapid Maturation in Night by Elie Wiesel

Night The transition from adolescence to adulthood is often a gradual process, but in the case of the narrator in the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, rapid maturation results from traumatic and gruesome experiences. Before his forced migration to a concentration camp, the narrator is depicted as an optimistic Jewish person with a passion for ancient Hebrew texts and scriptures. But soon, his unrealistic, illogical hope of studying the cabbala and his teenage innocence are irreparably crushed by the terror, violence, and pain that he endures in Auschwitz.

By becoming more independent, facing the growing burden of caring for his father, and questioning the very God he used to worship, it is clear that the narrator, loosely based on Elie Wiesel himself, has been stripped of his childhood and forced to mature before his time. The first page of this memoir introduces the reader to a young Jewish boy with high aspirations of studying the Jewish texts. His inexorable determination to master these abstruse works is characteristic of a child who has yet to grasp the concept of knowledge.

Foolishly expecting himself to comprehend writing that has taken years of dedication for scholars to interpret is a symbolic feature of the narrator’s innocent view that unhindered opportunity is a guarantee for all. As the narrator will soon find out, his quixotic goal of comprehending these esoteric writings is not only difficult, but also useless since he begins to doubt the validity of these holy texts.

The narrator’s first sign of doubt appears on page 22 when he states “For the first time, I felt revolt rise up in me.

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Why should I bless his name? The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank Him for?” (22). We see this hopefulness continue to deteriorate as the memoir progresses, climaxing with his outright questioning of God on page 44. The narrator angrily asks himself “Why, but why should I bless Him?’ (44). After seeing women and children die before his eyes, being deprived of food for months, and facing torturous labor on a daily basis, the narrator does not believe that any just God could condone such atrocities. His unconditional faith in religion has diminished significantly since the start of the memoir, all due to his horrific experiences in concentration camps. The author intentionally emphasizes this drastic change from faithful believer to doubtful victim in order to illustrate the narrator’s development into a harsh, cold man. The narrator has been subject to unspeakable horrors that have corroded his spiritual innocence, but his emotional immaturity has been demolished as well. Early on in the memoir, we see that the narrator’s father is a well-respected man in the Jewish community of Sighet. He is often consulted for advice on public matters which shows that he is a trustworthy individual. Clearly, many people depend on him for support, including his son. When the narrator and his father are first taken to Auschwitz, it is apparent that the narrator is very attached to his father. On page 21, we see the narrator’s concern over whether or not his father would be separated into the same group as him. The narrator showcases his love for his father when he states “If he went to the right, I would go after him” (21).

Thankfully, they are both sent to the same side, giving the narrator a wave of relief. The father-son connections that these two display early on in the book are ones that purvey a sense of unending companionship, but we soon see that the love the narrator feels for his father will diminish as the narrator matures in his understanding of life. After weeks upon weeks of arduous labor and malnourishment, our narrator begins to reconsider the practicality of supporting his father. Initially, the narrator had blindly donated his precious time and resources in order to support his father. These selfless acts, such as giving his father extra bread and encouraging him to keep moving, demonstrate the narrator’s growth and maturation by showing that he realizes he is responsible for his father. Although the narrator’s altruistic actions are examples of his development, the selfishness that he displays is an even greater representation of his true maturation. In the malnourished state that the narrator is in, it takes a great deal of mental and physical strength to sacrifice his energy for the support of his father, in addition to himself. But the strength to realize that life is not infinite and that he is risking death by aiding his father is an even harder concept to grasp.

The narrator displays a grave understanding of selfish maturity after his father’s death when he says “I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep…in the recesses of my weakened conscience, could I have searched it, I might perhaps have found something like— free at last!” (75). After maturing from his childish state of dependence on his father and abandoning his superficial understanding of death, the narrator has now recognized that his efforts to support his father are fruitless and his best bet for survival would be to let him go. The thorough description of the narrator’s maturation in the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel is crucial to recognizing the book’s status as a novel of growth and formation. An understanding of death, priority, and survival is what the narrator obtains through his experience in the camp, clearly displaying his maturation and development. The narrator’s growing distrust of God, increased independence from his father, and recognition of death as a terminal state all serve to characterize Night as a bildungsroman.