Alejandro Vargas Vélez English I PAP Mrs. McNair

During World War II, a devastating era in recent history, approximately eighteen million souls perished while attempting to salvage what little humanity they had left. Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, uses his memoir Night to remind people of what others are capable of. The author uses internal conflict to help reveal the theme of hopelessness. The narrator shows hopelessness by writing his thoughts of God. Now he faces death for the first time, ”Why should I sanctify his name...What was there to thank him for?”(P.33). The prisoners’ first sight as they enter Birkenau is horror and death. Because of this, begins to lose faith in God. After he dodges death narrowly, the Jew says this, ”Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God”(P.34). This prisoner of war is suffering because of the death his fellow prisoners. He suffers the most because those deaths have also caused the death of his God. As the other prisoners are still trying to digest these events, he thinks, “I has ceased to pray…I doubted [God’s] absolute justice”(P.45). God is letting Jews to be killed and tortured at the will of Nazis. Because this is occurring, God has become one of the two largest enemies of the Jews. The theme of hopelessness is shown by the internal conflict of God plaguing the young man. Even though religion can be a useful distraction from all the treachery in the world, it will eventually seem as a mockery of life as it just repeats that everything will be fine in the most painful places where, obviously, nothing will come out fine.