Hope is a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.
Faith can factor a characters hope. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel it shows how lack of hope can lead to Elie questioning his faith. In Names Written In Blood And Rust it shows how always maintaining hope can make faith stronger. In the movie Life is Beautiful Guido’s fathers strong faith and determination to keep his son Alive bring hope to the whole film and Guido. If it was not for each of these characters hope and faith they would not have had the impact on history they do to this day.
In Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie had such strong faith in the beginning of the book, but that would soon be dwindled down because of all the terrible events he faced. Elie would pray everyday and even wanted to study the cabbala, but because of how young he was his father would not let him. Elie had trouble keeping faith when he arrived at the concentration camps, which made it hard to continue to have strong hope. Elie had traumatizing experiences at Auschwitz and could not believe how many innocent Jews and other people were being tortured and dying all around him. Elie and his father were barely surviving and Elie at this point was questioning his faith, a example was when Elie watches his father get whipped by Nazis as he had to count each hit. “I did not deny God’s existence, but I doubted his absolute justice” (42).
Elie having strong faith made hope harder to have when God let him down. Elie also questioned his faith when the Nazis made thousands of children die by burning them and then burying them in mass graves “Blessed be God’s name? Why, but why would I bless Him?” (67) At this point Elie did not understand why God was making this happen to so many innocent people. In Names Written In Blood And Rust by Martha Ann Overland, the prisoners were held in a underground prison in Syria, Mansour Omari and many other people were tortured and starved. The conditions were horrific.
There was not enough space for people to lay down so the men had to sleep in shifts. The men had barely any food for Nine months Omari said he never saw the sun. With all of these terrible conditions it was hard to have strong hope especially since Omari had loss faith. Monsieur Omari and many other men felt empty inside, and felt like they would never be released. “You turn into a skeleton inside.” (2) Omari said that because many of the prisoners thought there lives were over, and they would not be around for much longer. Although Monsieur Omari lost his faith for awhile does not mean he did regain his faith and have more hope later on.
After months of being in the prison Omari was finally set free, because of how he regained his faith, it made him have hope for others who were still imprisoned, and try to bring justice to them. Once Omari was free he started to search for the families of the men. “Many of them it was the first time they had heard about their sons, got a lot of them they didn’t believe me because they were in shock.” (3) Omari did this because his faith had led him to have strong hope for others, and helped him spread awareness of what was going on with the other men’s families.
The film Life is Beautiful displays how faith and hope is what kept the main characters Guido, his father and mother going. When Guido and his father were sent to the concentration camps, Guidos mother decided she wanted to be with the rest of her family so she too left even thought she didn’t need too. When she go to the concentration camp she heard a Jewish women say “They don’t send old people and kids to work because they kill them. One of these days they’ll call them to take a shower. “Children, shower time!” The truth is, they make them shower there in the gas chamber.” Guidos mother had hope that her son and husband would be alright, so she prayed. Eventually she was reassured that her family was alright when her husband sent messages through the intercom.
Guidos father so worried about his son and wife, he was trying to do everything he could to make his son Guido feel comfortable, and not scared at the concentration camps. He pretended to play a game with his son and his son believed him “The game starts now. You have to score one thousand points. If you do that, you take home a tank with a big gun.” Guidos father did this because he tried to help Guido survive and this made sure Guido would not misbehave or say the wrong thing to the Nazis.
This made Guido and his father more hope. Guidos father had more hope now that his son was not misbehaving and Guido gained hoped because he hoped he would win the game and the tank. Through Guidos fathers love, hope, and faith Guido felt like he had something to hope for. when we have something to hope for, and someone showing us love, we are capable of many things. In conclusion throughout these hard times and eye opening moments for these characters in each story it showed the idea that if you have strong faith your hope is much stronger, and having good faith can lead to a much more positive outcome in bad situations.
