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Parker Kvenvold
Gary Bigelow
English 10
13 April 2015
Elie and His Father
The Jewish people were sorted by sex and age in order to filter out who was
the best and fittest for working. During this time of categorizing, families and
friends were separated, causing relationships to fail or carry on. It is inferred that
those who could stay together clung to each other as a way to hold on to old
memories. These ideas are explored in Night by Elie Wiesel, which discusses Elies
relationship with his father. In this memoir, the relationship with Elies father and
himself changes from mere blood-relatives, to the absolute need for each other, to
wanting to survive and make it through the Holocaust. It was because of his father,
Elie was able to hold on to his humanity, and without his father, he became a
nothing.
Throughout the memoir, Elies relationship with his father changed several
times. Their relationship is general at first. He describes his father as a cultured
man and rather unsentimental. Also commenting on how he rarely displayed his
feelings and that he was more involved with the welfare of others than his own
kin (Wiesel 4). This is the only true description Wiesel gives of his father. If Elie had
known more, he wouldve included more to get his point across. Wiesel added into
how the father rarely displayed his feelings, delving into how Elies father never
really showed at emotion of feeling towards Elie. This would lead to a distant
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relationship with his father. Later, when Elie and his father arrive at the camp, they
act as if they have been close their whole lives.
Elie continued on his father
holding [his] hand even going as far as to tighten [his] grip on [his] father
(Wiesel 30). Wiesel included this to show how Elie begins to cling to his father and
how his father clings on to Elie, too. Elie acts as if his fathers hand is his life-line,
holding onto it as well as he can. This is where the relationship between the two
begins to grow dire. Towards his fathers death, Elie becomes obsessed with his
rations and his food. He even goes as far to say, The bread, the soup- those were
my entire life (52). Wiesel says this to portray how the relationship between Elie
and his father is replaceable by things that are more important. Wiesel is explaining
that his father is no longer as important to him as his food. Its known, because if it
were the opposite, Elie would have stated that his father were his life now.
This relationship slowly shows how Elie needs his dad, because without his
dad he loses his sense of humanity to survive physically. Several times, Elies father
came close to dying and in a moment of when all was thought to be lost, Elie says,
there was no longer any reason to live, any reason to fight (99) This shows how
Elie fights on for his father, and believes that once this thing hes fighting for is
gone, he will be also. The reason Elie lived on long enough to let go, was because
his father was there to give him a reason. His father insisted he live on, because
they lived for each other. However, when Elies father does die, one of the first
things uttered is: Free at last (112). Wiesel shows how hes let go of his humanity
right after his father dies. He does not die, as expected. He lives on with little detail
as to what happens. Life is thorough when a human is alive mentally, and vague
when someone is dead on the inside. This is proven when Elie states: from the
depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me (115). This proves Elie sees
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himself as just a walking corpse after his father dies; as if he had died on the inside
and lost all sense of his humanity one his father passed. Wiesel puts special
emphasis on how dead his gaze had become and the blankness he recalls, but most
importantly is how he calls himself a corpse. A corpse has nothing to live for and
nothing left; including humanity.
In conclusion, Elies relationship with his father changes significantly over the
course of the book, going from broad to necessary, to unimportant as long as Elie
remained fed. But Elie without his father was dead, left with no humanity or
meaning. This relationship and importance was analyzed within Elie Wiesels
memoir Night. Displaying the growing relationship between his father and how it
slowly collapsed with time over rations and the brutal fight to survive. This
relationship remained complex, but important to the progress of the story being
told. Their relationship is important, because without his father, Elie felt no reason
to remain human or alive, calling himself a walking corpse gazing at himself
through a mirror.
