Elie's Father example essay topic

Why did Elie let it happen? What could Elie really have done as an alternative to save his father from dying? He could not have helped his father from being beaten up by the SS guards but he did try to help him from being attacked by his own men in his sleeping barracks. Elie really wanted his father to live. Elie does everything possible to help his father unless it would do harm to himself. Elie could not have helped his father from being beaten by the SS guards because on Page 284 in the November 2000 issue of Oprah's Magazine, Elie and her have an interview and during the interview he tells about the times in the camp when his father was being beaten and he said, 'And i realized that is was when my father, who was sick, called out to me- and I didn't respond, because I was afraid to be beaten up.

I let him die. ' He also was afraid to stand up to the people in the barracks because he said, 'That day my father got his portion of bread, and somebody who saw that he was dying stole his bread. ' He tried very hard to protect hi father and felt sorrow because he said, 'My father wanted me to protect him, but i couldn't. ' Elie really needs and wants his father to live. When the SS guards yell 'Throw out all the dead! Corpses outside!' the guards were going to throw Elie's father out but Elie said, 'I threw myself on top of his body, he was cold.

I slapped him. I rubbed his hands crying: Father! Father! Wake up! They are trying to throw you out of the carriage' The SS guards yelled' Leave him. You can see perfectly well that he's dead.

' Elie replied, 'No! He isn't dead! not yet! !' On page 286 of the interview with Oprah, Elie explains how he needed his father to live and survive himself by saying 'As long as my father was alive, i wanted to live- but only because of him. After he died, between January and April [of the year we were released], I didn't really live. ' Elie is more concerned about his own safety but does everything g to help his father with out endangering himself. In the book Night, he was telling about when the SS guard were trying to throw his father out of the carriage and Elie says' I set to work slapping him as hard as I could.

After a moment my father's eyelids moved slightly over his glazed eyes. He was breathing weakly. ' Another time Elie did everything he could to save his father was when his father was saying, 'Eliezer... Eliezer... Tell the not to hit me... I haven't done anything...

Why do they keep hitting me?' Elie said, 'I began to abuse his neighbors. They laughed at me. I promised them bread, soup. They laughed. Then they got angry; they could not stand my father any longer. they said, because he was now unable to drag himself outside to relieve himself. ' Elie also wanted to save his father from the SS guards but couldn't when he said, 'But my father did not hear him.

He went on calling me. The officer dealt him a violent blow on the head with his truncheon. I did not move. I was afraid. MY body was afraid of also receiving a blow. Elie really wanted and needed his father to live and he does everything possible to help his father unless it would do harm to himself.