Night Chapters 7-9: Family Implications

At this point in the story, Elie's father is close to death.  Elie is undergoing a moral conflict of how to treat his father.  In his last days, Elie's father refuses food and asks only of water, which aggravates his sever dysentery.  If I were in Elie's shoes, it would be very difficult for me to decide how to treat my father.
     On one side, I could deny him all food and accelerate his path to inevitable death.  This gives me more food and increases my chances of survival since I'm taking his ration as well.  He will also appreciate not having to suffer as long in a life that will end soon no matter what he does.  "It's too late to save your old father, I said to myself.  You ought to be having two rations of bread, two rations of soup..." (Night, 105)
     On the other side, I could continue feeding and caring for my father.  After all, he is my only remaining family member, one who has faithfully stayed by me throughout everything we have endured.  It only seems wrong for me to abandon him in the moment he needs me most, when he is on the brink of death.  "I knew that he must not drink. But he pleaded with me for so long that I gave in.  Water was the worst poison he could have, but what could I do for him? With water, without water, it would all be over soon anyway..." (Night, 104)
     Elie chose to stay by his father's side, and I don't blame him for his decision.  Even if it seems short-sighted to continue providing sustenance for a man doomed to die, Elie could not mentally accept abandoning his father.
     However, his father's demise seemed especially graphic to me.  After surviving constant starvation and overworking, his death was caused by his skull caving in from a nazi's truncheon.  If his father had remained quiet and quelled his madness, he could have survived for maybe another day.  But his madness ultimately killed him.
     Not being able to accept his father's death left indelible effects on Elie's mental state.  "Bending over him, I stayed gazing at him for over an hour, engraving into myself the picture of his blood-stained face, his shattered skull." (Night, 106)  He simply had no more energy to show emotion.  At some point prior to his physical death, Elie's father died in spirit.  Elie accepted this and moved on, blindly caring for him out of natural compassion towards his father.  I find this to be an extremely selfless act, one that few people could display in such difficult times.