The truth is a challenging concept to grasp when it comes in terms with making the other person happy and doing the right thing. Most people would think lying is not an acceptable way to create a healthy and sustainable relationship, but to what extent does telling the truth become harmful in a relationship? In the memoir Night written by Elie Wiesel and in the movie Life is Beautiful directed by Roberto Benigni, both father and son Shlomo and Elie, and Guido and Joshua get sent off to a concentration camp due to the heinous matter of discrimination. The father-son relationship in Night differs from the father-son relationship in Life is Beautiful by how each of the fathers deal with the truth which ultimately distinguishes between a healthy …show more content…
This builds on whether the father-son relationship between Shlomo and Elie, and Guido and Joshua is healthy or not. In Night, Elie just got back from reciting Kaddish at a Rosh Hashanah Service at the camp. He came back to find his father leaning against a wall with horrible posture. Elie narrates, “ I looked up at my father’s face, trying to glimpse a smile or something like it on his stricken face. But there was nothing. Not the shadow of an expression. Defeat” (Wiesel 69). Since Elie knows the truth about what is going on in reality, he is constantly brought down by his father. Elie is continually caring and worrying for his father which is only hurting himself. This proves an unhealthy relationship because of the amount of codependency Shlomo has for Elie. In Life is Beautiful, Guido has told Joshua that the whole concentration camp is a game, and that they have to get to a certain number of points and Joshua wins a brand new tank. Joshua asks Guido how many points he got while working, lifting the anvils, and Guido replies with, “Fifty! Actually, forty-eight, they deducted two points because I tripped while I was playing hopscotch. But I had a great time, I nearly died laughing. I can’t wait until tomorrow. Hopscotch, tug of war, and ring around the rosy. Every game, I don’t even remember all of them” (Benigni 117). Though Guido is going through an incredible amount of manual labor, he still goes to the lengths to make his son happy and not let him know the truth. No matter what happens, Guido only wants to see his son happy, which is what true love and a healthy relationship is. Because of Shlomo and Guido’s different approaches of dealing with the truth, it determines the relationship they have between their sons