Theme Of Suffering In Night By Elie Wiesel

The Significance of Emotional Suffering for Jewish Prisoners in the Holocaust
In addition to conspicuous physical scars, victims of abuse are often left with less-visible damage to their mental state, both emotional and spiritual. The consequences of emotional and spiritual suffering are explored in depth in the memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel. In my opinion, the spiritual and emotional trauma experienced by Elie and the Jewish prisoners is more damaging than the physical effects. Firstly, their intense suffering results in a complete loss of faith for many characters after their life-changing experiences. Additionally, after time spent in the physically and mentally draining concentration camps, many of the prisoners resort to human survival
On many occasions in Night, the Jews' individual human survival instincts dominate their compassion for others and love for family members. After many months of exhausting work and living in terrible conditions, Elie's father's health decreases rapidly, and Elie spends the night in Buchenwald on the bunk above him. When he wakes up, his father had been taken away and replaced by another sick prisoner. Elie's reaction is surprisingly insensitive. "I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. But I was out of tears. And deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last!" (112). Within him, Elie's desire to survive and endure this test of strength supersedes his devotion to his father. Human survival instinct takes over and he gives in to his concerns for himself. With this changed perspective focused on self-preservation, he no longer wants to provide adequate care for his father, and it matters much less to Elie if his father survives. He is seen as a burden instead of an important figure in Elie's life, and so Elie is relieved when he finds his father has been taken away for a certain death. The challenges of life in Buchenwald force the Jews to transform their way of thinking and behaving to give themselves the best chance of
Specific painful experiences of isolation and separation from family members are often the root cause of hallucinations and other unsettling experiences that Jewish prisoners face. Mrs. Schächter is a Jew that experienced the very worst of the prisoners' treatment in the concentration camps. She has hallucinations, begins to act irrationally, and behaves in a way that enrages the other prisoners. They make her pay the ultimate price for this. "She continued to scream and sob fitfully. 'Jews, listen to me,' she cried, 'I see a fire! I see flames, huge flames!' It was as though she was possessed by some evil spirit." (26). Mrs. Schächter's visions and panic episodes are evidence of her suffering affecting her psychological state. These challenges change her fate forever: she is then beaten mercilessly by other prisoners and deemed unfit to work at Birkenau. Mrs.Schächter faces physical stuggles in addition to those in her own mind because of her concentration camp experiences. Some Jewish prisoners are so deeply damaged by their separation and isolation from others that they lose their mental stability and can never return to their own