Life is full of conflicts and conflicts help to keep life going. Conflicts happen so that a person or groups of people will help to find a solution. In Night by Elie Wiesel, there are multiple conflicts that influence the progression of his memoir. Some examples of conflicts are character vs. society and character vs. self. In this story, I believe that the central conflict of the story is between character vs. the supernatural where his belief in god is slowly degraded as he spends his days in labor camps.
In the beginning of Night, Wiesel was a heavy believer in god. He decides to grow up to be a Rabbi and asks for his father's permission. Elie Wiesel wrote: "One day I asked my father to find me a master to guide me in my studies of the cabbala"(Wiesel 1). He was willing to take a step closer to god to communicate with him. He felt that he had found life meaningful and that god treated everyone fairly. He had a fortunate family and life. No one in the community was ever a bother even the beggar was considered as "invisible".
As Night progresses, Elie finds himself in Auschwitz and sees innocent people being burned alive by the Germans. He was terrified and shocked and wished that it was all a nightmare. In this scene, Elie begins to question God: "... I felt revolt rise up in me. Why should I bless His name? The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank Him for?" (Wiesel 31). In this scene, Elie wonders why God is doing this to all of his people. They had never done any wrong and yet they are to suffer slowly and die an unfulfilled life. He sees God as more of a traitor and that he only supports the strong and full of injustice.
At the middle of Elie's time in labor camp, he witnesses a young child being hanged and he had to stare at the entire scene. Due to the young boy's light weight and size, he continued to struggle out of the tight rope. At the moment he marched past the struggling boy, he believes that God had disappeared from his side. He states: "Behind me, I heard the same man asking: 'where is God now?' And I heard a voice within me answer him: 'Where is he? Here He is- He is hanging here on this gallows...'" (Wiesel 62). He believes that god has mistreated many people causing them to suffer ever since he had gone to Auschwitz. Now that he had witnessed a young child being hanged, he broke and was angry at god. He knew that god had just killed a boy that had not lived to his full potential. The next day, Elie blames god for all things and rebelled him: "Why, but why should I bless Him? In every fiber I rebelled. Because He had had thousands of children burned in His pits? Because He kept six crematories working night and day on Sundays and feast days." (Wiesel 64) Elie continues listing all the other destructive things that he has done. He does not pray nor believe in him for God. Elie experienced all the torture and witnessed all the deaths of the people that he had forgotten about the past. All he thinks about is how to survive and make it through the camps.
Overall, Elie lost his faith in God by the end of the concentration and labor camps. He was mistreated and saw dead people where he went. He had lost faith in the god he was once familiar with but it had died. That is why this book Night by Elie Wiesel is about Elie vs. the Supernatural (religion).
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