Night Response 3

            Faith – what motivates a person to persevere through any tragic event. Without faith, there is no hope. Everyone wants to believe in something, something larger than life. But without anything to believe in, one’s world might fall apart. Throughout the course of the book, Night, Elie faces the greatest struggle to maintain a strong faith in God.

             What kept most of the Jews hopeful during WWII was their firm faith in God, and their belief they would eventually reach salvation. After Elie starts to realize there is no way out of death’s grasp, he starts to doubt God. What used to be his most valued moral is now the very moral he corrupts. Without faith in God, he feels there is no way out, no hope, no future. Because of all the horrific tragedies that occur right before his eyes, he sees no reason to believe in God, let alone worship him. “Why, but why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled” (67). Elie let down his guard, and lost all belief in the one thing that could keep him motivated to not give up – a firm faith in God. Just because God isn’t responding to Elie’s prayers the way he wants him to doesn’t mean that God isn’t listening. If Elie would just continue his hope that God performs miracles, his time in the concentration camp would be a little easier to experience. Everyone wants to believe in something larger than life, but Elie is struggling to hold onto that faith.

Night Response 1

Joan Starich
Mrs. Woods
Honor's English 10
3 April 2012

Habitual Actions
Confusion, shock, terror, endurance, adaptation, normalcy. These are the steps in which one becomes acclimated to a stressful situation, and no longer sees the reality of how terrible their environment actually is. Ironically after adaptation, normalcy always follows shortly after. Elie writes, "Silence fell again..We could begin to doze again, to rest, to dream" (26). After breaking the shock and settling into peaceful silence, people would continue their normal routines. Like the message of the sentence, it's structure ties in with as well by making these routines sound bland. Through his sentence structure and word repetition; Elie Wiese, author of Night, explains how passion fades to effortless because of habit.
After repeatedly facing immense struggles, the struggles now turn from nightmares to expected reality - nothing new, normal, acceptable. As a Jew during WWII times, Elie has a confused feeling about his unknown future. Growing up learning to praise God and put full effort into worship was an expectation, and Elie is obedient and understanding in this sense. Stripped of his old environment and everything he had ever known, the very morals he values most are also falling into the hands of the Nazis. When describing a typical Jewish gathering, Elie writes, "We drank, we ate, we sang" (10). Based on the repeating clause format, the reader's response is that these actions are boring and lack in substance - just like the sentence. Elie wrote this way on purpose, to convey this effect. Running through the motions instead of putting one's entire heart into a traditional praise proves how after habit of suffering, pain seemingly no longer exists. The sound of their song tasted bittersweet - heard but not listened to.