The Transformations of A Survivalist

In the novel Night, innumerable examples of dehumanization were expressed. From 1933

to 1945, Germany's Nazi government was in power with the intention of annihilating Jews and

those deemed "undesirable". The Jews were taken away from their names and had to go through

what the Nazis planned for them. Out of the eight pillars of caste, the one that seems to fit with

the idea of xenophobia is “dehumanization and stigma” (Wilkerson). In the two critical scenes

where Elie Wiesel lost his faith in God and as he recognizes the physical changes in himself, the

characters in the novel Night undergo a variety of changes and transformations as a result of their

dehumanization. Night contains crucial scenes that relate to the Global Context of Identities and

Relationship because of the connection between spiritual beliefs system and physical changes; in

these two critical scenes, the characters transform and change while being dehumanized. A

theme that manifests during each scene when the characters have lost their humanity and the

oppressors psychologically deteriorate the Jew’s belief system and physically dehumanize them,

by degrading them and taking away their simple natural rights as a human being.

The theme is first introduced in the scene where Elie Wiesel loses his faith in God. “I

suffer... I also have eyes and I see what is being done here. Where is God's mercy? Where's God?

How can I believe, how can anyone believe in this God of Mercy?" (Wiesel, 77). This scene

depicts Elie Wiesel and the other Jews began to lose faith in God as they continued to face

mistreatment and dehumanization. Not only have they lost their faith in God, but the situation

has become extremely worse that they are questioning their faith in humanity. The Jews no

longer believe that God is there to help them. The pillar of caste “dehumanization and stigma”

connects to this particular scene because it involves “...you have quarantined them from the
masses you choose to elevate and have programmed everyone… [they] no longer believe what

their eyes can see, to no longer trust their own thoughts” (Wilkerson). This evidently reveals that

the target for abusing them was to make the Jewish people lose their faith in god and their

humanity. The Nasiz brainwashed the Jews to completly abandon their morals and beliefs. The

Nazis took away the Jewish people's simple rights such as their names. The Global Context of

Identities and Relationship explores the “nature of the self; beliefs and values... human

relationships” (Alexander). It relates to the scene due to the change of beliefs and values. It also

connects to the theme of losing their humanity and faith by the oppressors. This leads to the next

scene where the theme expands by Elie Wiesel’s transformation.

The theme gets deeper in the scene where Elie Wiesel realizes the physical changes in

himself. “...I decided to look at myself in the mirror... I had not seen myself since the ghetto.

From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me” (Wiesel 115). This scene

exemplifies, as Elie Wiesel looked at himself he notices how different he looks and his poor

health. After all of the terror abuse and suffering happened to him, he didn't even see himself as a

human being; everything that made him a human was gone. Elie Wiesel was barely alive; he

considered himself as a walking corpse. The pillars of caste “dehumanization and stigma” ties up

with this scene when “the Nazis approached human deprivation as a science. They calculated the

number of calories required for a certain task… And fed those laborers one or two number

calories fewer… To keep them too weak to fight back as they slowly starved to death”

(Wilkerson). This clearly embodies how badly the Nazis treated the Jewish people by that time

and this is why Elie Wiesel and other people were seeing themselves just as a walking corpse.

The Global Context of Identities and Relationships mentions “What it means to be human”

(Alexander), which relates with this exact scene because Elie Wiesel experiences several sorts of
transformations as a result of his dehumanization. But this is what a human being means, change

and transform into a new different person after all of the terrible things happen to him.

The pillar of “dehumanization and stigma” discusses how the Jewish people were

reprogrammed and treated like animals instead of humans, this made them lose their humanity,

which was explored in the novel Night. This also caused the Jews to lose their belief in god and

change appearances. In the two crucial scenes the characters have lost their identities and started

doing anything to survive like animals. They didn’t have anyone to believe in anymore. And as a

result, the Jewish people began to lose faith in someone that they never thought would: God. Elie

Wiesel physically becomes more dehumanized and looks like a skeleton, causing him to lose his

characteristic and transform in many ways. Under the circumstances that Jews had to go through

made life on Earth seem unfair.

Works Cited

Wiesel, Elie. Night. Austin: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1995. Print.

Wilkerson, Isabel. Caste. New York: Random House, 2020. Print.