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Loss Of Innocence In Elie Wiesel's Night

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Support or refute the following generalization: "A major theme of the novel is a boy's loss of innocence in a world he thought good and a loss of faith in a God he thought just." Be sure to answer both parts of the prompt. The central theme of Elie Wiesel’s writing “Night” is a boy's loss of innocence in a world he thought good and a loss of faith in a God he thought just. Throughout the book, Wiesel encounters numerous situations that put him through a mix of emotions that lead him to change his belief that God is just. Originally Elie had full trust in God, shown by his devout prayers to God and his devoted study of the Talmud and Kabbalah. But over time his horrific experiences during the Holocaust started to influence his beliefs. He says in his first night at Auschwitz, “Never shall I forget …show more content…
With this statement he admits that his faith in a just God was wavering. After a few weeks in the concentration camp, Elie defends his decision to stop praying as he listens to the men speak of God and thinks to himself, “I was not denying His existence, but I doubted His absolute justice” (45). In chapter four, Elie changes his perspective on God when three inmates are hung in front of the camp. However the youngest of the three, a boy, did not die immediately when hung. As Elie and others walked past the dangling bodies, a man asked aloud, “For God’s sake, where is God?” and Elie answered for himself, “Where He is? This is where--hanging here from this gallows…”. This thought proves his idea of God, that He is still there and Elie still believes in him, however the idea that God is all good and just changes from that to unjust. Elie’s boyhood innocence is taken from him as he watches as infants (and adults) are tossed into the flames, shot, and killed when he stands in the sorting lines at Auschwitz. He and his father are torn away from his sister and mother thus separating his

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