My Book Club Book

     Elie Wiesel’s experiences during the Holocaust changed him because he gained maturity. When reading the book, Night by Elie Wiesel you are able to see that during the beginning of the story he was very dependent on his parents. He relied on his parents for food, water, shelter, etc. But, once the Holocaust began Elie and his father were separated from his mom and sisters. Elie and his father were not by each other’s side in the camps the entire time but, the were at the same camps.

     On page 107 you can see that this did allow Elie to be able to make some of his own decisions like, “I gave him what was left of my soup.” This shows that Elie has grown up because, if he was a little kid he would have possibly said that he was hungry and kept it for himself. But, since he is older he gave up the rest of his soup to give to his dad because he cared about him, and that shows maturity.

     Not only does that show maturity but, it also shows that he is caring. And being caring also ties in with being mature. After this point on he also went on to become independent because he was on his own for some of the time and did make a few decisions on his own.

     The Holocaust also changed Elie because he no longer cared about his survival. At the beginning of the book he was like any typical person, wanting to live a long and happy life. But, once he arrived in the concentration camps life got much harder. Elie struggle to live in life in the camps. They were not given much food or water. They also had to work for many long hours. Elie was able to survive because the one thing that motivated him to do this was his father, but unfortunately his father died.

     Found on page 113, Elie says that, “Since my father’s death, nothing mattered to me anymore.” This affected him a lot because up until his father’s death he felt a small bit of motivation, and that motivation was his father. But, when his father died he no longer cared if he survived. There was nothing that motivated him to keep on going.

     Elie ended up changing from these events because at the end of the book after his father died he no longer cared about anything, not even himself. He had been threw so much work and forced to walk for a long time. His father was his motivation and after his father died Elie didn’t care about anything anymore.