What is symbolism? It is the use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities. What I will be talking about in this essay is how symbolism was used in the book “Night” by Eliezer Wiesel. While there are many different versions of symbolism in the story I will only be focusing on three that I think are the best to talk about. Those three include the yellow stars the Jews had to wear, the spoon and knife Eliezer got from his father, and the title of the book. The first item in the story that represented symbolism to me was the yellow stars that the Jews had to wear. In case you don’t know the Nazis had them wear these so they could tell who was Jewish and who wasn’t. What these yellow stars represent is basically whoever wore one was marked for
Many immediately think to blame the Nazis, and only the Nazis for the Holocaust. This is not the case however, as many groups all share a portion of the blame. In Elie Wiesel's book, Night, it is evident that blame be passed to Elie’s God, the Jewish people themselves, and the non Jewish Europeans. Elie writes how his non Jewish neighbors watched, the Hungarian police force the Jews to march. When this was happening, the Jews were insulted, and beaten; it was clear the police had dark intentions.
Elie Wiesel wrote a book about his days during the HOLOCAUST. The Book itself is an incarnation of the symbolic trauma he has experienced. Three pieces of evidence from the story will be explained on how Elie’s suffering was symbolic. Now the first piece of evidence will be explained. First we explain the symbolism of the crematory.
The element of symbolism is so strong and predominant in the novel “Night,” we are able to delve deeper into the heinous experiences the Jews were subjected to during the Holocaust. There is no sure way to empathize with the victims of the Holocaust, but survivor Elie Wiesel opens the eyes of the reader to so many encounters that the Jews had to face in order to survive. Wiesel was able to portray individual emotions while using tangible objects or acts. Elie’s father, the march of the Jews, and the fire in the story all represent a deeper interpretation of themselves.
“I want to know how you keep holding on and believe again or how you never stop believing to begin with.” These words by Jessica Watson perfectly accentuate the battle that Elie Wiesel, the author of Night, struggles with throughout the novel. In the village of Sighet, Romania, a young Wiesel is enthralled by Jewish mysticism and believes the existence of an omnipotent God. One day, however, the Jewish people of Sighet are forced to live in supervised ghettos, and later brought to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Wiesel suffers with the physical torture of forced labor and hunger, as well as the mental and emotional torture of losing his family.
At the beginning of the book a little boy at the age of fifteen is name Elie Wiesel. Had to go through some difficult and challenging positions that he was in. And how he had to find a way to get out of these positions. And the name of the book is called (“NIGHT”) by Elie Wiesel. Now how the Germans and the cops are treating the Jews like dogs.
In the beginning of Elie Wiesel’s Night Elie is very faithful to God and eager to learn about God, the Kabbalah, and mysticism. When asked why does he pray Elie answered, “Why did I live? Why did I breathe?(4) ” After one of God’s Followers and Elie’s leader, Moishe the Beadle gets back from the forests everything changed. News about the Holocaust starts to spread.
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.
in the book “night” Eliezer Weisel says, “night fell, night had fallen, and night was falling. Eliezer Weisel means that by night people were dying and passing away. This has a reference to death because when people die they close their eyes, and its night forever. There were people dying left and right. Some people believed that if they died they would be with God.
In the short novel, Night by Elie Wiesel, the author discusses an event of tremendous scarring effect to him and all those unfortunate to be caught in it’s scourge, The Holocaust. From the new age diaspora, death marches, cremation, and many other tyrannical actions from the German Reich that left all witnesses traumatized. These horrendous acts brought out a primal version of self preservation in the prisoners. The prisoners self preservation is displayed through their fight for rations of bread, their relentless labor to avoid the path to death that is tested by Dr. Mengele, leading the prisoners ultimately to the crematorium.
The victims of the Holocaust, as told by Elie Wiesel in his novel, Night, suffered a loss of indentify and struggled to maintain their humanity. After the Jews got evacuated from their ghettos, the German put them into the cattle trains and moved them to the concentration camp. While in the train, the Jews are tormented by the unbearable conditions, where there was no air to breath, no room to sit, everyone was hungry and thirsty and they began to lose their sense of public decorum. Some flirted openly, while others pretended not to notice. After several days, they arrived at the Czechoslovakian border.
However what truly made this story so great was how the writer used the literary terms of symbol, setting, and theme to convey the meaning of the story. In the story, “The Things They Carried” symbolism had a big role in how the write gave life to the story. The literary definition of symbol is: An object, person, or action that conveys two meaning. for example one of the symbols is a picture of Martha.
Symbolism is the use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities. In A Lesson Before Dying, author Ishmael Beah uses symbolism to reinforce the theme of oppression and the struggle for freedom. First, Beah’s rap cassettes symbolize his free boyhood and the loss of it. Beah carries a cassette with him until he is conscripted into the army. The cassette stays in his pocket, and acts as a reminder of his free childhood.
Symbolism in O’Brien’s novel, The Things They Carried, plays a huge part in trying to support the author’s message. O’Brien uses symbols everywhere such as with the characters and to help develop the structure of the novel. The author decides to hide some of the symbols while some of the other symbols are in the open, making the symbols easy for the readers to pick up or understand clearly. The author uses symbolism in different forms, mainly intangible for an example. The main point of using symbols in a novel is to engage the readers, wanting them to continue reading, get the hidden messages across, and mainly addressing the theme.
In the article it says that Eliezer describes himself as a person who believes profoundly/strongly. The quote that is told means that throughout all the things that have happened to Eliezer he has always believed strongly in things like for instance how he believed in god in the first chapter, he bileived that god would save them all and they would servive the Holocaust. To believe profoundly means to believe strongly and agree. On chapter 1, page 1, it says that “ Why did I pray? Strange question.
In Elie’s statement, he claims he looked in the mirror for the first time since the ghetto, stating that all he saw staring back at him was his withered, and frail figure which will not only haunt Wiesel for the rest of his life but also show the death of his spirit. “From the depths of the mirror, the corpse was contemplating me. ” (Wiesel 115) In this quote, Wiesel describes his body, referring it to a corpse. Wiesel did not truly recognize himself as he immersed in the depths of the mirror, this is what Elie implied when he said “...