Night Q&A

It is difficult to conclusively answer this question from the text of Night alone since Eliezer’s feelings about God often change on the surface even if they do not do so in the depths of his mind. There are specific instances in which it is almost evident that Eliezer has shed his belief in God, such as the hanging of the young boy, and during Rosh Hashanah as well Yom Kippur. However, Eliezer continues to turn to God in moments of despair despite having declared him dead. Eliezer’s belief in God is a form of hope, and Night seems to put forward the idea that hope is an essential component of life. This is evident in the description of Akiba the Drummer’s death, who fails selection just as he gives up his belief in God. However, even he asks the other inmates to pray the Kaddish for him after his passing.

Eliezer describes how social decorum begins to devolve very quickly when human beings are treated like animals. This deterioration begins early in Eliezer’s account as the Jewish people from Sighet are loaded into cattle cars like livestock. As the Jewish people suffer the hardships of the concentration camps they are forced to fight over morsels of food due to the innate desire to survive. Elie does not shy away from describing a similar shift in himself, as he describes how he fiercely fought to secure some coffee for his ailing father. Elie seems to argue that human beings are deeply affected by how they are treated, as the prisoners in the concentration camp experienced a devolution in their behavior because the Nazis treated them like animals.

Eliezer’s disturbing descriptions of the terrible conditions of the concentration camps inspire wonder at his continued survival. He describes at various times in the book, how the desire to survive suddenly seemed to melt out of some people, for instance, Akiba the Drummer. This can be viewed as a death of hope. Night postulates that Hope is one of the most important factors in any struggle for survival.

Night is filled with surprising coincidences, and the tone of the memoir is quite clear on the role of chance throughout Eliezer’s account of the Holocaust. The memoir does not attribute any particular reason for Eliezer’s survival, just as it does not give any particular reason for the death of those who could not survive the Holocaust. The horrific circumstances of the concentration camp ensured that nothing except chance influenced the circumstances of a prisoner’s survival. All of them were worked to exhaustion and supplied with barely enough food for sustenance.