Despair, or the loss of hope and expectation, is when one gives up and feels hopeless, lacking motivation or energy to keep trying. It commonly occurs in those who have experienced or are experiencing traumatic events. Additionally, despair can lead to a loss of identity. Elie Wiesel’s novel Night depicts this loss of hope through the experiences of Jews during the Holocaust. In his memoir, Elie exposes the genuine emotions that prisoners endure when confronted with the horrors of concentration camps.
The novel portrays a gradual transition from helplessness to hopelessness, as the passionate emotion conveyed is despair. Elie’s personal experience exemplifies this as he abandons his religion, his family, and the entire world, including himself. The loss of faith serves as the first manifestation of despair. The atrocities endured during the Holocaust irreversibly traumatize Elie and he is unable to forgive God for allowing such horrors to occur: “The horrors…consumed my faith forever.” (Wiesel 34) Consequently, he stops praying and aligns himself with Job’s agreement with God.
Elie initially questions God’s absolute justice instead of denying His existence. This doubt leads him to stop praying and abandon his faith entirely. Giving up on fasting soon follows his disbelief. Through these actions, Elie attempts to convey a message to God in response to His silence, seeking His attention.
Elie questions his existence altogether because of God’s indifference, doubting that anyone, especially God, would allow cruel acts to keep happening if they had the power to stop it. The thought of “Where is God?” was shared by all prisoners when a boy was hung in front of them. These doubts about God continued to surface in Elie’s mind, wondering angrily how God compared to the suffering mass gathered to express their faith, anger, and defiance.
Elie is clouded by questions about the meaning of the grandeur of the Master of the Universe in the face of cowardice, decay, and misery (Wiesel 66-67). These unanswered questions cause him to turn his back on his religion, as it has not provided any help or comfort. This abandonment becomes permanent as Elie never seeks to rediscover what he has lost. Overwhelmed by despair, Elie also gives up on his family. The inhumane tactics he experiences lead to his rejection of the concept of family. One example is when the remaining Jews are forcefully relocated again near the end of the novel.
During this particular trip, they were not provided with any food or supplies. As people on the outside threw bread into their cars, violent fights broke out as everyone fought for every last crumb. Sadly, some sons ended up killing their own fathers in their desperation for food. Elie was shocked by this horrifying scene when he witnessed a son killing his father. The old man tried to make himself known to his son and offered him bread, but his pleas fell on deaf ears as the son searched his father’s pockets for food and began devouring it. This incident made Elie realize that the concept of family and its significance had become meaningless.
A fellow inmate assures Elie that in the concentration camp, one must focus solely on one’s own survival and cannot think of others, not even family. This advice convinces Elie that all past relationships are erased, and the only goal is to survive. As this harsh reality sinks in, he begins to act accordingly. When his father dies, Elie feels no emotion other than relief that he can now solely concentrate on himself. His father’s last word called out to him, but Elie did not answer. Deep inside, he might have felt a sense of liberation. Elie completely abandons his family, which was the only thing that kept him going, and his actions now stem from despair. The death of his father does not elicit any tears or pain. He starts losing hope in everything that mattered to him and stops believing in any potential rescue from the outside world.
The text highlights Elie’s progression from hope to despair throughout his experiences in the concentration camp. Initially, he holds onto hope, refusing to believe that such atrocities are happening in their time. However, as the Allies provide no concrete assistance and false hopes of liberation circulate, Elie eventually loses faith in the possibility of being saved. He no longer believes in the world’s willingness to fight against the brutal treatment of humanity. This loss of hope leads him to adopt a pessimistic mindset, as he claims to have more faith in Hitler keeping his promises to the Jewish people than in anyone else. Ultimately, Elie’s despair causes him to lose himself and his faith in humanity.
Elie’s loss of faith stems from unfulfilled desires and broken promises. Society’s silence during the extermination of the Jews only deepened his despair. In this cruel environment, death seemed preferable to life. Consequently, Elie became apathetic, devoid of fear and motivation.
The protagonist, engulfed in despair and devoid of optimism, no longer found a reason to live. The young boy he once was had vanished, leaving behind a mere semblance of himself. The flames had consumed his identity as a Talmudic student and child. What remained was a hollow figure resembling his former self (Wiesel 37). He had abandoned all hope in humanity and in himself, losing his sense of self amidst the horrors he endured. A divide had formed between his true self and the lifeless body representing a victim of the Holocaust. By the time help finally arrived, Elie had already given up on them – a testament to the sheer despair that permeated every corner of the camp.
The prisoners find solace in their shared experiences, which becomes their only connection. Elie’s belief in liberation and his values fade away, leaving him with no desire to live. Loss of everything important to him causes him to abandon his identity and lose himself. Despair is a powerful emotion that can make one reject their beliefs and forget what they once cherished. This theme of despair is depicted repeatedly throughout the novel.
Bibliography -Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York: Hill and Wang, 1958.
