Compare and Contrast of the Book Night

Compare and Contrast Paper

“Through love, through hope, and faith’s transcendent dower, we feel that we are greater than we know.”- William Wordsworth. As stated in this quote, when we have something to hope for, and someone showing us love, we are capable of many things. In the movie Life is Beautiful and the book Night love and hope are the only things that keep the characters alive. This is shown through Elie and his father’s relationship when his father reminds him of his fundamental feelings of love, compassion, and devotion to his family. Then Elie and his father look out for each other in hope to make it out the concentration camp alive. Love and hope are also shown in the movie Life is Beautiful when Guido and his son were taken to the concentration camp. Here, Guido’s love for his son Josh, kept him alive. Dora, Guido’s wife, shows persistent hope which ultimately leads to being reunited with Joshua. In both stories the hope that of rescue and the love that for each other gets the main characters through terrible times.

In the book Night Elie and his father’s relationship is crucial because his father reminds him of his fundamental feelings of love, compassion, and devotion to his family. Everywhere Elie looks, he sees miserable humans, lying, cheating and backstabbing for survival. This example is magnified when Rabbi Eliahou’s son abandons the Rabbi just to increase his own chance of survival. When Elie sees this happen he prays to God that he will not do the same thing. This is significant, because his father’s presence was keeping Elie’s humanity and compassion intact. Another example of Elie keeping his values is seen when Elie and his father were forced into the cattle cart along with 100 other prisoners and were shipped off to camp Gleiwitz. Many suffocated. The S.S officers ordered the prisoners to throw the dead bodies out. Elie’s dad was unconscious, when the prisoners came to throw him off the cart. Elie pleaded with them to stop. Finally, his father woke up and the men backed off. As Elie begged the men to leave his father alone, he showed not only concern with his own survival, but also his father’s. Elie’s humanity was further shown when Elie gave up his soup to his father. Despite the S.S officers telling Elie to save the food for him, because he needed the strength more than his father, Elie continued to give up his meals. This showed that, even thought Elie knew his father was going to die, he still cared for him. We see that in the book, Elie having his father with him kept him from turning into a lonely, faithless person.

Elie and his father were always hopeful, because they had each other to rely on. Elie does everything he can to protect his father, and vice versa. At camp Buna Elie noticed that his father could not keep in sync when all the prisoners marched. Franek, and S.S officer, noticed it to and began to beat Elie’s father every time he got out of place. The beatings began to make Elie’s father very weak. Elie, not wanting his father to be killed decided to take time and teach his father how to march. That shows that Elie cared enough about his father, that he taught him the tricks to surviving. Another S.S officer named Idek, also took interest in Elie and his father. Idek saw that Elie still had a gold tooth in his mouth. Idek demanded that Elie surrender the gold tooth. But, Elie refused. Idek then began to beat Elie’s father until Elie finally gave him the tooth. The gold tooth was Elie’s only financial resource. The fact that he gave it up just to save his father is very significant, because it showed