William James stated that the self was divided into “I” and “Me” and that the “Me” was divided into material, social, and spiritual subcategories. When the “I” is attacked and every subcategory is eliminated, a person can lose the defining characteristics that make them who they are. This type of psychological, emotional and mental torture is used by the Nazis in Elie Wiesel's harrowing book, Night. As the Nazis imprison and torture the Jewish population throughout history, they slowly destroy the "I" of the inmates. Concentration camps broke the spirit of prisoners by taking everything away from them. First they took their freedom and separated them from their family, then they took all their belongings and finally they starved them and shaved them so they looked the same. By doing this, the Nazis made Jews all look alike and therefore Jews lost the things they identified with. After a year in a camp, the “Self” of the Jews would have been completely subdued. The first category described by James was the “Material Me” (James 177). He states that “the body is the innermost part of the material self in each of us” and that “clothes come second” (James 177). James believes that someone's appearance affects their "Self". This is a valid statement because a person's appearance is a visual representation of individuality and is part of what makes each person unique. Therefore, if they were forced to change their appearance, then according to James, the person's self would be altered, if only slightly. This idea that appearance influences the self is supported in Night during the arrival of Elie Wiesel and his father in Birkenau. , a concentrate...... middle of paper ...... the people they were before their imprisonment. Using physical, emotional and psychological torture, they had completely destroyed everything that made each inmate who they were. Once the “spiritual me,” the “social me,” and the “material me” were destroyed, people no longer had any means to differentiate themselves from each other. If they no longer had any desire to stand out, the only thing left for them to think about was how they would survive the next day. This method was capable of reducing intelligent men and women to a primordial state in which the survival instinct was the controlling factor, which made the Jews easier to control. Works Cited Wiesel, Elie. Night, by Elie Wiesel. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006. Print.James, William. The Self. New York: Harper, 1961. Google Books. Network. February 6 2011