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Essay / The particularity of the Anti-bildungsroman in Wiesel's novel
A Bildungsroman story is that of training, education or the passage to adulthood. It is characterized by the development of the young protagonist to become a more well-rounded person. Elie Wiesel's memoir Night presents the opposite, an anti-Bildungs novel, as sixteen-year-old Elie emerges from the concentration camp at the end as an exhausted person. Elijah loses his family, he loses his faith, he suffers physically and starves to death, and he will likely face trauma for the rest of his life. While he begins the story as a functioning, healthy member of society, inspired to live, he ends it with nothing at all. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay A large contributing factor to the development of Elijah's negative character is the loss of his family. From the moment he hears the words “men to life, women to good”, he will never see his mother and sister again. During their time together in the camp, he and his father become closer than ever. This happens out of necessity for a reason to live, and their relationship takes them through times they couldn't have survived otherwise. However, Elie's father ends up dying in the death march. After losing him, Elie no longer has any reason to continue living, “nothing mattered to me anymore”. (113). Without his mother and sister, he has no other family to return to. Following the loss of his family, Elie finds himself alone in the world and has no reason to live. Growing up, Elijah's religion was a defining part of him. It inspired him to live and always continue to learn. “Why did I pray? A strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe? (4). Over the course of the memoir Night, his religion is slowly dissected and demolished by his experiences in the camp. Because Elijah's expectations of God were so high, they were even more easily destroyed. His faith being taken away from him, he finds himself without passion in life and without hope. After seeing a child hanged and hearing another prisoner wonder where God is, he said to himself, “It’s here – hanging here on this gallows.” (65). He is unable to believe in a God who would allow the horrors he witnesses to happen, and so his main source of joy and inspiration in life dies. “The student of the Talmud, the child that I was, had been consumed by the flames.” (37).In addition to having lost the spiritual and emotional reasons for living, Elijah also experiences great physical suffering, which weighs heavily on him. At one point he describes himself as “nothing but a body”. Perhaps even less: a hungry stomach. »(52). The horrific conditions in the camp force the prisoners to abandon their humanity and think only of survival. “That’s all we thought about. No thoughts of revenge, nor of parents. Only bread. (115). Elie even becomes dehumanized and survival-oriented enough to resent his father for being weak. “I felt anger at that moment, it was not directed at the Kapo, but at my father. Why couldn't he have avoided Idek's wrath? »(54). Elie's physical suffering plays a large role in how the concentration camp shapes and affects him psychologically. The trauma Elie experienced in the concentration camps can never truly recover and will likely leave him feeling excluded from the mainstream world for the rest of his life. of his life. When he first sees himself in the mirror after his release, he describes himself as “a corpse” (115). The version of him that entered the camp is dead, and there is no one left..