Eliezer Wiesel was a fifteen-year-old boy deported to the Nazi concentration camps in Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944-1945 along with the Jews from his hometown in Sighet. He demonstrates the personal struggles to maintain faith along with the struggle of silence, all of which are presented through the theme of Night by Elie Wiesel. His character develops a loss of innocence as he encounters inhumanity and the death of his father. Elie was a believer in God and learned the secrets of Jewish mysticism with the help of Moishe the Beadle before being sent out to the concentration camps. As he maintained his survival, he lost his faith in God. He didn’t participate in the prayers and felt like an observer as he watched the men who gathered for prayer. "In the midst of these men assembled for prayer, I felt like an observer, a stranger."(68) As Elie and the Jews went through their days of working, starvation, and dehydration, they felt as if their days were night "and the nights left in our souls the dregs of their darkness." (100) The symbolism of night demonstrates the beginning of Earth …show more content…
"On the Appelplatz, surrounded by electrified barbed wire, thousands of Jews, anguish on their faces, gathered in silence." (66) The barbed wire helps reflect that Elie and other prisoners were living in the worst conditions and in silence, in similarity to Mrs. Schachter. On their way to the concentration camp, Mrs. Schachter spotted a fire, which no one believed until the train stopped. "And as the train stopped, this time we saw flames rising from a tall chimney into a black sky. Mrs. Schachter had fallen silent on her own." (28) Fire and flames represent the symbolism of the burning bush of Moses and God. The bush represents the burning heart of love and purity for the Jews, but in this case, it was used to destroy the innocent
Look at this fire! This terrible fire! Have mercy on me!", but nothing was there “only the darkness of night” (25). During the day she remained absent but towards the evening again she began to shout again: "The fire, over there!"(26). In the beginning people had just thought of her to be mad in a concerning way but eventually after all her hollering they got tired of it and begun to struck her.
Look at this fire! This terrible fire! Have mercy on me!", but nothing was there “only the darkness of night” (25). During the day she remained absent but towards the evening again she began to shout again: "The fire, over there!"(26). In the beginning people had just thought of her to be mad in a concerning way but eventually after all her hollering they got tired of it and begun to struck her.
In the beginning, Eliezer is a very strong follower of the Jewish Religion. In the early part of the book, before they are sent to the labor camps, Wiesel shows that he is strong with his faith when he says: “I was almost thirteen and deeply observant. By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the temple (Wiesel 3).” This quote comes from the first page of the book, where Wiesel is talking about his life before the chaos started, circa. 1941.
Eliezer’s words in the middle of p.34, starting with, “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in the camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed,”(34) gave a new meaning to the word night. The story had gone more in depth on the horrors of the time, also it reinforces what I had said in my previous journal, that Night, the title, refers to the never ending darkness that surrounds Eliezer. In this part of the book Eliezer writes “Never shall I forget,”(34) followed by everything he had seen, every story he will remember, everything he has endured. The repetition of the “Never shall I forget,”(34) isolates every attribute he doesn’t want to forget, which almost honors it and then he moves on to the next.
In the story Night by Elie Wiesel, we follow Elie between 1941 and 1945 across Europe. Elie is an adolescent Jewish boy in tune with his faith. He would study Talmud by day and by night he would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple. In Sighet 1941, Elie was nearly thirteen when he met someone who everyone called Moishe the Beadle. Elie was so interested in learning more about his faith that he asked his father to find a master to help guide him in his studies of Kabbalah.
Elie Wiesel, the author of the memoir, Night, recounts his experiences mainly as a teenager in Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. Elie’s battle to keep faith in his religious belief was a common theme throughout the book. As he began his journey to understand the faith to which he had been born, he eventually needed a mentor to guide him throughout the faith-filled process. At certain times, Elie struggled to keep true to his benevolent God when he witnessed the atrocities of the Germans on the Jews. But he managed to dig deep and muster up some courage to seek his true faith.
The dark, mysterious and life changing setting the memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel contributes to the protagonist’s hardships between a spiritual character (God) and a minor character (his father). Eliezer, the protagonist, is faithful meaning that he respects and is influence by his God. “Oh God…have mercy on us” (20) as Eliezer “[prays] to his God…for strength,” (5) when arriving to the Ghettos. However, when arriving to the man-made settings such as the concentration camps, the relationship starts to diminish. The setting alters Eliezer’s judgment and now relies more on God’s faith to help the people at the camps.
For me, the greatest moment of sadness in the memoir is when Elie’s father dies. His death is gruesome and much suffering is shown throughout the last pages of the memoir. A dramatic shift is made in Elie’s perspective after this traumatic event. His father serves as his sole motivation to continue on in their cruel conditions and without him Elie is hopeless and alone. I feel Elie's father's death also symbolizes the unjustness of their situation.
Elie questions how “is it possible that men, women, and children were being burned and that the world kept silent?” (Wiesel 32). Never expecting to witness such horrible things, Elie wonders how the atrocities had never been made public and known. There were so many people in the concentration camps that he expected someone to have shared their story and help others stay away from the concentration camps, yet he himself had been one to ignore the warnings. Elie states that he “could not believe that human beings were being burned in our times; the world would not tolerate such crimes” (Wiesel 33).
Elie Wiesel mentioned in his Novel "Night" that the prisoners came from a religious community, ¨The Jew of Sighet¨ (p. 3). Yom Kippur was a solemn Jew religious holiday where adults abstained from eating and drinking for long hours, except for sick people, children, pregnant women, or those who gave birth. Jews sought forgiveness of their sins by fasting. Even In a non-ordinary situation like the death camp, some Jews believed that they needed to fast more than any other day to clean their soul and seek forgiveness from God. They could not give away everything and became nonbelievers regardless of the horrific circumstances, especially for Elie, who learned and studied his religion at an early age, ¨ I studied Talmud, and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the
During World War II, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi controlled concentration camps abducted millions of European Jews and were responsible for the deaths of over 6 million people. For those who survived, they were left with extreme physical and emotional scars that would never fade. In Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, he reveals the heartbreaking backstory of the Holocaust and the traumatizing effects it had on him, which left him comparing himself to a corpse after liberation. Elie Wiesel’s mirror reflection is that of a corpse at the end of his memoir, Night, because of the immense loss he experiences during the Holocaust.
The symbolism of night brings out the more prominent message. Night is used throughout the book to symbolize death. The idea of night is always invoked when the torment is the worst. Elie experiences many life changing events during the night. The incident that impacted Elie the most was the passing of
The infamous Yin and Yang symbol, a balance between good and evil. There isn’t one without the other. Balance is the way it’s intended, for everything to be equal. However this is simply not accurate, nothing is perfect, the balance can tip towards any side. For some there is more light than there is darkness.
After going through the holocaust many victims said that they suffered from PTSD, depression, and sleep disorders other had health problems due to the poor conditions of the camp. Night by Elie Wiesel is about the authors expirence of the holocaust as a teenage boy and how it slowly starts to break his pyche. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the author uses conflict, characterization, symbolism to enhance the theme that putting people in tortuous situations causes mentality and body to break. The conflict of misery Elie and others had to go through because of the Holocaust.
As a 16 year old, I would say that I go through a lot in my day-to-day life. Waking up early everyday for school, staying in school for 7 hours, studying, and eating meals that I would argue are sometimes not the very best. If I had to imagine my 16 year old self getting stripped away from my home, being separated from my family, and to live in absolutely unlivable conditions, I wouldn’t be writing this essay right now. These conditions, however, are the exact conditions that the then-teenager Elie Wiesel and many countless others have gone through during the Holocaust. Wiesel accounts his personal experience through writing a memoir, Night, in it his experiences written with much symbolism.