Have you ever cared for someone so much, that you forgot about your own health and safety, so you could focus on theirs? Elie Wiesel tells his story about his time in a concentration camp during World War Two in his very own book, Night. He was only 13 years old in the comfort of his home in Sighet, Transylvania, until the Nazis invaded and began tearing his life apart. Once Elie and his father get to Auschwitz, you'll see Elie's survival chances fall, due to carrying his fathers weight, only dragging him further down.
The book Night is about escaping because it’s either that or death. In a couple times of the book they have a chance of escaping. Like when Moshe the beadle was crammed onto the cattle train he manages to escape. He came back running to house to house telling everyone about the trains. The trains would make their way into Poland then taken over by the gestapo.
Elie Wiesel, the author of Night, was born in a town of Sighet, Transylvania, which is now known as Romania, in the year 1928 of September 30th. Elizer had three sisters and was pursuing Jewish religious studies at a nearby yeshiva, before failing to flee the country for safety from the Nazi Germany Soldiers. At the age of 15, he, along with his family and the entire Jewish population, were expelled from their hometowns and were forced to relocate to concentration camps. Due to this outcome, Elie and his father were separated from his mother and sister and was deported to a concentration camp in Auschwitz in 1944. They were later transferred to a “very good camp,” called Buna in Buchenwald.
While reading the book Night by Elie Wiesel, one of the things I learned about was the jews living conditions. I read about Elie living them with many other jews and it stuck out to me because how could a person live like that and stay alive? Every jew that was caught was sent to a concentration camp and had a total different way of lifestyle when being held there. Another thing that stuck out while reading the book was the SS officers. The SS officers are Hitler's protective unit.
In the novel, Night, the author, Elie Wiesel, utilizes imagery to aid readers in visualizing the occurring events. This is especially seen in a passage that occurs when Moishe the Beadle returns from his horrific experience and is explaining what he went through. In the line, “Without passion or haste, they shot their prisoners, who were forced to approach the trench one by one and offer their necks,” (6) an image of forced submission is developed and helps readers comprehend the event fully. Readers can see the cruelty of the experience through Wiesel’s specific word choice, which consequently creates strong imagery of thousands of people with necks to the sides, ready to be killed. The description stirs up a picture of people who have given
Elie Wiesel has a somber mood in the text ‘Night’. He does this by using imagery and symbolism, Wiesel does this so curiously, as not to plunge into a sad mood, but slowly eases the reader into the despair. The author describes a boy as “angel faced” that slowly moves towards a tragic ending. The angel is a power symbol throughout all cultures, and using that symbol to be placed onto a boy, and expressed through imagery creates a sense of dread and despair. Eliezer depicts a young boy to a “sad faced angel”, in the sense that the boy seems holy, and innocent, yet being in a labor camp, reinforces our idea that the Nazis have no respect for anything good or sacred in the world.
This can also be found in the title of the novel as it symbolizes death, loss of faith and hope. Additionally, as previously stated, the worst suffering seems to occur at night. For example, the narrative contains many last nights: the last night in Sighet, the last night in Buna, the last night with his father and many more. Night also symbolizes a world without God. Wiesel contends that God does not live in the concentration camps and God's people have no recourse.
(Pg. 12) In chapter one, the author uses examples of imagery to foreshadow the upcoming tragedy that Ellie will face. Although Ellie realizes that harsh conditions are approaching, similar to the growing darkness when a day transitions into night, he does not have any clue about the extent of the horror that is to come. The “growing darkness” can be translated into their hope quickly extinguishing, leaving only a depressing feeling of emptiness. In addition, the title itself, Night, portrays Elie’s hope decreasing, parallel to the decreasing amount of light during the night time.
Why is the book called “Night”? “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed. ”(p. 34) Never shall I forget that smoke.(p. 34) That night, the soup tasted of corpses.
Fire stands out the most because he used fire to foreshadow the ghettos and it's easier to spot and recognize when used symbolically. Night and death are commonly used in reference to the text, making it harder to distinguish them from words and symbols. Fire symbolizes Wiesel’s hellish experience in the ghettos with the SS officers, and he makes that very distinct when Mrs.Schächter was used to foreshadow their future. The foreshadowing becomes obvious when the author writes “Jews, listen to me,’ she cried.
Night, fire and death are things that occur many times throughout the book, death being a very big one. Death stands out the most because it happens so much in the book and people are so used to it, they act as if it 's a normal thing. For example, "Babies! Yes, I see this, with my own eyes... children thrown into the flames" (Wiesel 32).
Losing faith is like clearing off a foggy windshield. The true pain and suffering of the world are revealed. During the Holocaust, the SS would often force prisoners to witness the deaths of fellow prisoners, to scare them into obeying the SS and to show the prisoners what would happen to them if they did not follow orders. In the memoir Night, Elie Wiesel uses symbolism and metaphors to show the theme that suffering will weaken religious faith.
Fire is often a symbol of pain and suffering and is particularly evident throughout different personal accounts of historical events. Throughout Night, by Elie Wiesel, Wiesel gives an accurate account of his life throughout the Holocaust while using different motifs to symbolize the horrors of the Holocaust. Wiesel uses motifs to show things without actually saying them directly. Throughout Night, the motif of fire is portrayed as a symbol of Hell on Earth and usually indicates that a bad thing will start to happen and is shown in multiple moments including Mrs. Schaechter, the Crematoriums, and the Death March.
In the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel, Elie tells about his dreadful experience as a Jewish prisoner in one of Hitler’s concentration camps. As he realizes all the cruelty he sees in the camps, he starts questioning his faith in God. He slowly starts losing faith/belief in God. The more horrible stuffs that happen to Elie, the more he becomes distant from God and starts showing less devotion towards himself. He began to change the way he was.
Elie Wiesel titles his book Night because night is significant to Elie’s experiences during the Holocaust because night symbolizes the darkening of souls and the loss in faith in others during this dark time period. It is also used as a passage of time to mark the most important and life changing moments in Elie’s life. One of the reasons Elie Wiesel chose to title his book Night is because the darkness of night represents the darkening of the souls and identities of many prisoners during the Holocaust. For example, after Elie’s first night in the concentration camp, he says, “The night was gone.
