Theme analysis "night" so far.

Kyle Parnau
Ms. Stein
English
!/11/10
Night Theme Analysis
“They will never wake up! Never!” (105). Imagine trying to talk sense into your own father, who has no more will to survive. This is the beginning of the end for Elie Wiesel's father as stated throughout Elie's memoir “Night”. Together they survived through so much of the Holocaust, but his father can endure no longer. Elie could not have made it this far without his father. This goes to show how evident the father son relationship is in this relationship. Furthermore, that people can change when forced to survive through a hardship such as the Holocaust; In this story Elie and his father's relationship shifts starting when he is a kid, during the concentration camps, and in the final moments of his fathers life.
As a kid, Elie was not close to his father. They both had different goals in life. Elie wanted to study the Kabbalah and mysticism while his father “was a cultured man... he was more involved with the welfare of others than with that of his own kin” (4). Elie's father disagreed with his idea to study the Kabbalah. When his father says “You are too young for that” (4) you can tell his father wishes for Elie to peruse a different goal. Elie has nobody to turn to except his teacher Moishe, who seems like more of a father figure at this point. Especially when he went to see Moishe every evening after that.
Once Elie and his father reached the concentration camp, their relation really changed. I think Elie realize how much his father meant to him. Elie is just a kid and relies on his father when he first gets into the concentration camp. “I felt my father's hand press against mine” (29). Deep down inside, Elie new that he loved his father and would do anything for him. Elie even said “Still I was happy, I was near my father” (32). Even though he loved his father so much, this between them soon changed again. Elie pretty much looses all his emotions because of the terror he sees in the concentration camps. “I stood petrified. My father had just been struck, in front of me, and I had not even blinked” (39). throughout the story Elie still pushes his father to survive, but all the death had become the norm to him.