Elie and His Faith

     At the beginning and throughout chapter 5, Elie has been starting to show signs of rebelling and not believing in his faith. From refusing to pray to God during Jewish New Year, to not fasting on Yom Kippur and expressing anger to Akiba Drumer for relying on God too much, Elie seems to have almost had enough with those who still have their faith in God despite all that is occurring. Even though you should always have faith and not turn your back to God, I do understand to a degree of why Elie feels the way he does towards God. He has been through the worst experiences that one can see and experience in their lifetime, and at this point, instead of relying on God for help, Elie has adapted and learned to rely on himself and himself only. He is starting to develop an animalistic survival instinct. He has gotten to the point of where he only really cares about himself in order to survive. He has had his mother and sister killed through selection, seen babies and toddlers being thrown into a pit of fire, experiencing himself and his father constantly getting beat, starving and being malnourished, and much more. There is a clear reason as to why at the end of the day, Elie doesn't have a strong belief in his faith anymore. He has been through the worst of the worst one could possibly ever go through in their life, and to see all of this happen in such a short amount to time with no signs of God's help, Elie has lost his belief and faith in God.

     Just like our class has discussed, Elie will make it out of the Holocaust physically, but he won't make it out mentally or spiritually. The concentration camps are slowly starting to dehumanize him, he only cares about his own survival, he won't even stand up for his own father because of how scared and dehumanized he is getting to be, and he is used to see someone being beaten or lynched. It seems as if most of his mind has become a rock now. He feels barely any emotions of affection, and despite still being a little humane, he has gone through so much. It is just a part of his everyday life now. His only goal when he wakes up is to probably just have an animalistic survival instinct to keep himself alive. However, I can understand a little of why Elie feels the way he does towards his faith. You should never lose your faith in God, however, after all that Elie went through, I can see why he might feel this way. Elie went from being so passionate about his faith and crying when he prayed to rebelling against his faith. However, even though he may feel like turning against God, he does feel lonely as if he does not have anyone. This may show that Elie may still go back to his faith despite him resisting it so far...