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In today's world, many people have families but struggle to connect with them. They may not feel as close with their roots as Elie did, but your family doesn't have to come from just your blood. You can make a family out of friends and people who are there to support you, who can push you to do great things. Family, whether by blood or by choice, is very important in our lives and should be cherished. Of course it doesn't come without difficulties or disagreements, but people will find themselves motivated to do great things just for their loved ones.

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'But at the same moment this thought came into my mind: "Don't let me find him! If only I could rid of this dead weight, so that I could use all my strength for my own survival, and only worry about myself." Immediately I felt ashamed of myself, ashamed forever.' (93)

Response: I noticed this part near the end of the story where Elie's mind begins to falter from his usual practices as his father grows sick. He realizes his father is dying, after everything they went through, and his thoughts become sporadic and panicked. He doesn't think like he normally does, and although he doesn't mean these lines which his brain conjures up, they still rise to the surface despite his better wishes. His family has meant so much to him that seeing his father in a state of disarray has made him already start the grieving process, despite him not being dead. He knows he is going to die, and can't take it anymore. Family was his driving force, his beacon of light through his time in the concentration camps, that he refuses to believe this is happening. He resorts to anger at first, but then feels quickly ashamed. He cares so much for his father that it pains him to see him go, so his mind tries to convince him that he wanted this.

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Night by Elie Wiesel - A project by Mia Wallace

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Night by Elie Wiesel - A project by Mia Wallace

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Family is a driving force in life.

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'Our old servant, Martha, came to see us. Weeping bitterly, she begged us to come to her village, where she could give us a safe refuge. My father did not want to hear it. "You can go if you want to," he said to me and my older sisters. "I shall stay here with your mother and the child..." Naturally, we refused to be separated.' (17)

Response: Family is very important to Elie, even above safety. When they are in the ghetto, their old servant comes to visit them, and even though she guarantees that they will all be safe elsewhere, the children refuse to leave. They want to stay together and not be separated. This proves how important family is to them, especially because their father gives Elie and his older sisters the choice, but they choose to stay anyway. Family has been ingrained in their culture and their background, and it is a principle they clearly cherish. The children choose to persevere through what they can assume will be a bad situation, based on Martha's distress, but they put family first.

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Elie Wiesel's personal transformation relates to my theme of family being a driving force in life because we see how his father pushes and motivates him during his time in internment camps. He also changes to start thinking negative things during this time, directed toward his faith and his father, wishing he could get rid of the dead weight. It shows that even though he doesn't want to think this way, the holocaust has transformed him into a different person than he was before. After his father passed away, all he thought about was survival. No longer did he think about God or praying, no longer was he tied to his humanity, he just kept going day by day wishing for it all to end. His family was very important to him and even though, in rage, he wished his father gone, deep down I believe he never really meant it at all because family is a huge part of Elie's life.

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"What is the relationship between our stories and our identity? To what extent are we all witnesses to history and messengers to humanity?"

Our stories can come from the ones we create through ourselves, in our lives, or from the people before us. Stories are passed down through lineage, through family, and shape our upbringing through ideals, practices, beliefs, etc. You hold these things close to you because it's what you are familiar with. When stories of the people before you, of your ancestors, have been placed in your hands, you are taught to treasure them. We are witnesses to history through what we have seen, but we must be messengers and make sure those stories do not die out. As family members pass on traditions and practices, it is the younger generation's job to make sure they don't die out.

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"Meir. Meir, my boy! Don't you recognize me? I'm your father... you're hurting me... you're killing your father! I've got some bread...for you too... for you too..." (89)

Response: I believe Elie sees how desperation and their current situation has driven apart a father and son, and how that compares to his relationship with his own father, and he fears for what prison life will make of him. Even though his faith with God has been dwindling, he still hopes that he'll never reach a point similar to that. I believe this shows how devoted he is to preserving what is left of his family, and how his father is very important to him because it's the only thing he has left from his past. His father is his anchor in faith and mentality; keeping him grounded in a crazy world.

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'My father's voice drew me from my thoughts. "It's a shame... a shame that you couldn't have gone with your mother....I saw several boys of your age going with their mothers..." His voice was terribly sad. I realized that he did not want to see what they were going to do to me. He did not want to see the burning of his only son.' (31)

Response: I believe that this is where Elie's father began to lose hope. He saw how his family was being torn apart, wife and daughters abandoned to die, and he and his son were soon to be burned. Even though he knows of the fate his wife and daughters had, he still wishes Elie could have gone with them to have one last parting moment. He feels deeply for his family, and cannot bare to see them hurt, which is why he wishes he could have sent his son away in this moment. The thought of someone you love being hurt, right in front of you even, and you can't do anything is heart breaking.

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'Yet that was the moment when I parted from my mother. I had not had time to think, but already I felt the pressure of my father's hand: we were alone. For a part of a second I glimpsed my mother and my sisters moving away to the right. Tzipora held Mother's hand. I saw them disappear into the distance; my mother was stroking my sister's fair air, as though to protect her, while I walked on with my father and the other men. And I did not know that in that place, at that moment, I was parting from my mother and Tzipora forever.' (28)

Response: Elie's family has emphasized to be very important to him even from the first pages of the novel, but here we see half of his family being ripped away from him. He clings to his father to cope with this, clings to the only person who he is familiar with, but this does nothing to help his suffering. In that moment, it feels surreal to see his family walking away, but he realizes afterward what must have happened to them. It is an impacting moment which must have left him shaken later on, but in this moment, he still has his father's support. Without his dad with him, I think he would have been more panicked and worried about what was happening to his mother and sisters. Instead his father comforts him. This shows how family is a strong connecting force.