Night

In Chapter Eight, Eliezer remembers that he has to look for his father. Part of him wants to forget about his weak, burdensome father, and he feels ashamed at these thoughts. Eliezer looks for his father for hours and finally finds him in the coffee line. His father is feverish and is unbelievably grateful when Eliezer brings him a cup of coffee. Later on, Eliezer's father tells him that the guards are refusing to feed the sick because they think they will die soon anyway. Eliezer unwillingly gives him the rest of his soup and realizes that he is no better than Rabbi Eliahou's son.

n an earlier section, the reader hears about the behavior of Rabbi Eliahou's unfaithful son, and this episode foreshadows what happens in this section. Like Rabbi Eliahou's son, Eliezer cannot help but think of his dying father as a burden. Even though he hates himself for wanting to be rid of his father, he feels that the responsibility of looking after his father is lessening his own chances at survival. For example, when Eliezer goes to find his father, who he has left lying in a pile of snow, he thinks to himself, "Don't let me find him! If only I could get rid of this dead weight, so that I could use all my strength to struggle for my own survival, and only worry about myself." Similarly, after his father's death, he is ashamed that he feels relieved: "And, in the depths of my being, in the recesses of my weakened conscience, could I have searched it, I might perhaps have found something like‹free at last!"