Question

In the story NIGHT by Elie Wiesel:

Write a 3-4 paragraph essay in which you interpret and describe how Eliezer’s faith is affected by his experiences.

Answer 1

How strong is your faith? How long would it last? Could it survive? Eliezer's did. He was devoted to his faith when we first met him. It seemed as if nothing could break it. Then he had a tragic event in his life like many other Jews. He was pushed to his breaking limit, but he survived. Did his faith survive also? Yes, it did, but this was not the same faith that he had at the beginning of his story. As we travel through his story we see faith fall apart, change its beliefs, and build itself up again. We will consider how his faith changed throughout this story.

To begin we will look at how the Ghetto affected him. Eliezer grew up thinking that God is everywhere all the time. This made him believed that the whole world must be good. His faith somewhat sheltered him from reality. Eliezer told us that he was excited to be moving to the Ghetto. He liked the idea of it just being all Jews. He said that now they wouldn’t have to deal with the non-Jews disapproving looks. This shows how much he valued his faith. He didn’t want anyone or anything to affect it.

Much to Eliezer's disadvantage, his envision of the world does not prepare him for the road ahead. His ignorance made it hard for him to comprehend how the concentration camp could exist and how brutal the Nazis could be. He struggled to see how God could be here and allow this to happen. It greatly affects his faith. A particular event hit him hard. This event was when the child has hung in front of the whole camp. This makes him question whether God exists. He once said, “My anger rises up within faith and not outside it." In his lowest moments of faith, he finds himself coming back to God.

In the end, he denies his faith, but his actions say otherwise. He shows this in many ways. For example when he wishes that there could have been a religious memorial when his father passed. He also uses many religious metaphors even when he denied his faith. Eliezer even prayed to God when thought that he might abandon his father. Eliezer had his faith tested many times and he almost lost, but in the end, it survived. His faith has been forever changed but he survived.

Answer 2

In looking at the story, “Night,” by Elie Wiesel, we see that it is a story about a male Jewish teenager who experiences the Holocaust. During his experiences, we see that his faith is affected in two different ways. Initially, the events he sees strengthens his faith because religion is comforting during his earlier experiences. Later on, his experiences because of all the atrocities he has seen, he begins to lose his faith. When writing an essay on how Eliezer’s experiences have affected his faith, you could talk about, both, how his experiences were positively and negatively affected. This would give you an essay of four paragraphs. Paragraph 1 would be your introduction where you set up your paper and include a thesis statement and mention something similar to “Eliezer was certainly a Jewish man of faith; however, his experiences within the Holocaust caused his faith to be both positively and negatively affected.” What this tells readers is that Paragraph 2 will be about the positive effects on his faith (where you’ll provide examples from the story). Then, Paragraph 3 will be about the negative effects (where you’ll, too, provide examples from the text. Lastly, you’ll provide your conclusion in Paragraph 4 where you’ll provide some final insights and reiterate your thesis statement (restating it but using different words).