Chance and Luck in Elie Wiesel's Night

Everything during the Holocaust was based on luck and chance. No one knew what the outcome to any situation would be. No one knew which decision would led them to the place they wanted to be. No one knew what the solution would be, but they had to make decisions based on the situations handed to them. This was especially evident in the personal experiences of Elie Wiesel. He showed these to the world through his first novel, Night.

Towards the very beginning of Elie's ordeal, he had the choice of showing if he was strong or not; he chose not to. If he had chosen to show that he had strength, he would have been sent to do extremely harsh work. Even in the very beginning of this terrible tale Elie had as a life, he was faced with situations which he had to respond to. He was given chances, and they all depended on the luck of the draw.

Elie and his father had the choice of where to go when Elie was kept in the hospital for his left arm. They could both stay in the hospital or follow the others. Either one could give life and either one could give death. The choice was theirs, and they chose to be evacuated with the others. Luck was sadly against them this time. If they had stayed in the hospital, they would have been liberated by the Russians just two days later, but it was impossible for them to have known that before their choice had been made.

Elie Weisel blatantly said, "We were lucky." There were more terrible things to come, and he was aware of that. He knew that the better feelings he had at the time were not going to last. He knew what his chances were and what his father's chances were, and they were not in their favor. When Elie was faced with a decision to go to the dentist for the extraction of his gold tooth, he chose not to make up an excuse. He did so more than once, and each time he was playing with his life. He never knew if he would choose the right decision, but he was fully aware of how lucky he was and had been.

Some people played more recklessly with their chances. One man went to go get more soup from a cauldron, even though most everyone knew they were not allowed to do so. He rolled his dice a bit too hard, and he got the consequence - death.

There was something everyone at the camp had feared. This was selection. It was a point where everyone would be split up into different groups. The group they were in would tell them their fate. Would they live or die? They never knew which it would be or how to figure it out. It was pure evil that they were faced with such horrible things.

In the end, luck was on Elie's side, but it wasn't on his father's. Elie, however, got the chance to tell his story, courageously. He showed us what everyone went through. He showed us the meaning to his life in hopes that we could find meaning to our own. Considered by many, he was lucky. He got his fair chances and the outcome worked out for him in the end. Of course it was not the best. There was no "best" in this massacre. Everyone just had to try as hard as they could to go down the right path, or at least not the wrong one. It proved to be entirely about luck.

Works Cited:

Kahn and Hager. When They Came to Take My Father, Voices of the Holocaust. New York: Arcade Publishing, 1996.

Mitterand and Wiesel. Memoir in Two Voices. New York: Arcade Publishing, 1996.

Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York: Hill and Wang, 1986.