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Claudia Dorian
Ms. Crowell
English 11
20 May 2019
FatherSon Relationships in Wiesel’s Night
Night, a memoir from the holocaust by Elie Wiesel, is a haunting firsthand account that
lets the reader see the pain and suffering faced by many during that harrowing time. In Night,
Elie and his family are forced to leave their home in Transylvania to live in a ghetto, and are then
transported to concentration camps. Once in the camps, Elie and his Father, Shlomo, are
separated from the rest of their family, and become a focal point of the book. Wiesel focuses on
their relationship, as well as the relationships of other fathers and sons, in order to show the
unnatural changes to these relationships that occur during the horrors of concentration camp life.
The holocaust experience distorts fatherson relationships, which can be seen in the relationships
between Elie and his father, and also Rabbi Eliahu and his son. First, a closeness occurs because
of the want to protect and stick with someone you know and care about. Then there develops a
strain, due to the pressure to be fighting only for one’s own survival, which goes against the
natural tendencies of loyalty between father and son.
The first change that happens is that Elie and Shlomo grow closer. At first, they have
almost no relationship, and it even seems that before the camps, Shlomo does not care about Elie
and his family very much. Wiesel writes, “My father was a cultured man, rather unsentimental.
He rarely displayed his feelings, not even within his family, and was more involved with the
welfare of others than with that of his own kin” (4). Shlomo is not very involved with his family,
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leading him and Elie to not have a strong bond as father and son. Furthering this, Shlomo
disapproves of Elie’s passion, studying Kabbalah. Wiesel writes that his father “wanted to drive
the idea of studying Kabbalah from my mind. In vain” (4). This could cause an even weaker
connection, as the centerpiece of Elie’s life at home is studying the Kabbalah. This all starts to
change, however, when the pair faces the perils of the Holocaust. Once they reach the camps,
Elie writes that “My hand tightened its grip on my father. All I could think of was not to lose
him. Not to remain alone” (30). Elie starts to value his father and wants to be near him. Elie also
writes that “All I could think of was not to lose him”, in which you can see his growing desire to
be with his father, and that their bond is strengthening. They even further continue to grow closer
and care for each other. For example, Elie’s father gives Elie his own ration of bread to eat,
saying, “I’m not hungry” (44) even though he definitely is. Not only is Elie becoming closer to
his father, but his father is showing his affection and support toward Elie by giving him his
rations. There continues to be little actions of care and kinship like these, leading the reader to
see them grow closer, something that perhaps would not have happened if their lives had not
have been changed by the holocaust.
Then, once the camps become even more severe and taxing, their relationship becomes
strained. This is due to Shlomo holding Elie back and perhaps suppressing Elie’s own chances of
survival. Wiesel writes about his father, “What would he do without me? I was his sole support”
(87). The camps have put the two of them through so much that they have lost most of their
strength, especially in the case of Shlomo, who’s weakness makes him reliant on Elie. This puts
the most strain on their relationship, because even surviving on one's own is proving to be a
difficult battle. Wiesel shows this explicitly in the book during the scene where there is chaos
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during an alert at the camps. Elie follows the mob of other prisoners, forgetting about his father
even though he knows that Shlomo is, “running out of strength, close to death” (106). He later
goes to look for his father, where “at the same time a thought crept into my mind: If only I didn’t
find him! If only I were relieved of this responsibility, I could use all my strength to fight for my
own survival, to take care only of myself…” (106). This is a turning point where Elie has the
realization that his father holds him back and that he might be better off without him. He leaves
his father without any conscious thought about it, and later thinks about being “relieved of this
responsibility”, the responsibility of taking care of his father. Directly after this, immense guilt
strikes Elie, with him writing, Instantly, I felt ashamed, ashamed of myself forever” (106). This
sudden and overwhelming guilt and shame shows that this is not how Elie would have thought or
acted in a normal circumstance. The experience of the holocaust, and in particular life in the
concentration camps, has pushed Elie to desperation. His mind has gone into a fight or flight
mode, because he has to endure a situation of constant worry for survival. This causes Elie
wonder about leaving his father behind; an act that is immoral to him but could be necessary to
his survival. Obviously, this changes their father son relationship, distorting it from how it would
be in a normal situation.
This change is not only shown through Elie and Shlomo’s relationship, but also through
the relationships of other fathers and sons that Elie observes in the camps. Elie notices the
relationship between Rabbi Eliahu and his son. The son has seemingly abandoned his father in
this case, which leaves Elie wrecked with anger, writing, “Oh God, Master of the Universe, give
me the strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahu’s son has done” (91). This seems a little bit
twisted, because shortly after this, Elie starts to have urges to act like Rabbi Eliahu’s son, for
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example during the alert discussed previously. This all shows that the camps are having similar
effects upon many fathers and sons, with Elie and Rabbi Eliahu’s son having similar urges to
abandon their fathers. Due to the harsh and severe life they are living, each man goes against the
natural bond between fathers and sons and has to fend for themselves in the name of personal
survival.
The fatherson relationship changes that occur in Night are unnatural, in that they would
not have happened if not for the holocaust. Elie and Shlomo were not close before, and only
grew close because they had a moral belief of the importance to care for family in times of
danger. Later, fathers and sons grew apart because the holocaust strains each person to where it is
in their best interest to only care about themselves in order to survive. Without his father, the
sons could have been able to rely on their animal instincts and live for their personal gain. The
holocaust distorted these relationships, just as it altered the course of history.
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Works Cited
Wiesel, Elie. Night . Translated by Marion Wiesel, New York City, Hill and Wang, 2006.
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