Horrors of the night
Most people are not afraid of the night but are afraid of what lurks in it. Elie Wiesel is the sole survivor in his family who witnessed countless unimaginable horrors, including the death of his own father. “Night” the memoir Elie wrote to commemorate his life follows Elie and his family through the holocaust. In the book surrounding his life, the theme unimaginable horrors are plentiful. The theme of unimaginable horrors is presented in the book “Night” as shown on pages 32, 65, and 110 as well as more. Everything that was close to Elie was taken away from him and must live with these memories forever. He no longer views himself as human because of this. In his perspective he is a corpse. Living dead, haunted
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All of that was about to change. Elie gets sent to the German concentration camp Auschwitz following the timeline of World War II. He would not be freed from these camps for another 11 months. During this time Elie would bare witness to some of the most gruesome and grotesque things to ever occur on earth. “Babies. Yes, I did see this with my own eyes…children thrown into the flames.” (Wiesel 32) In this quote children are being murdered by the Germans because they are not considered “useful.” Life so quickly brought into this world, taken out just as easily. Another memory darkening his mind so much that it is darker than night itself. Night will pass but it will come again. Just like these memories. Elie never truly forgot. They will always come back and haunt him forever. Babies being thrown into the pits of fire is a picture so morbid you would think you were in a nightmare. Ellies life contained many memories like …show more content…
When Elie was separated from his mother and sister at the beginning of the book Elie was only left with his father. When things got tough, they continued pushing for each other. They made sacrifices for each other and always made sure the other was ok. Elie had lost the rest of his family so his father meant the world to him. At the end of the book this is also taken away from him. “Eliezer…I could see he was still breathing in gasps. I didn’t move.” His worst fear had come true, his father had died. His last words being his name. He called out to Elie; he did not answer. The sound of his father calling out in pain, haunting him
Elie’s experiences within Auschwitz turned him into his own fear. Elie feared many different parts of his experiences at the concentration camp, but the fear of mistreating the only thing he had left in life, his father, was something that left Elie truly broken. The examples used previously demonstrate that Auschwitz did more than just make Elie see a son kill his own father for bread, it did more than just make Elie see people abandon each other (e.g. when Meir abandoned his father), it did more than just make Elie want to never find his father again, it did more than just make Elie see his own father die, and it did more than just make Elie selfish and cruel (e.i. when Elie grudgingly shared his meal with his dying father); his experiences
Starting in chapter 3 of Night Elie’s terrors start as he is forced to walk slowly towards what he thought would be his death. As he was just steps away from the crematorium a SS officer told him to go left. All during this time Elie was considering running directly into the electrified fence to cut his time at Auschwitz short. Soon after he is placed in a barracks where he has been sorted through by age, health and occupation. For the next 8 days he is running around doing anything to blend in
Further in the book it talks more about the unimaginable horrors. In chapter 3 Elie and his family had arrived in Birkenau a camp site. He and his father were able to stay together, while Elie’s mother and sister went the opposite way. Without knowing that was the last time that he would see his mother.
In the book Night, we the readers witness the hardships and struggles in Elie’s life during the traumatic holocaust. The events that take place in this story are unbearable and are thought to be demented in modern times. In the beginning Elie is shown as a normal teenage Jewish boy, but the events are so drastic that we the readers forget how he was like in the beginning. Changes were made to Elie during the book, whether they were minor or major. The changes generated from himself, the journey, and other people.
In the novel Night Wiesel is informing the reader about the traumatizing experience that he went through in the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel was a 15- year-old Jewish boy who was sent to the concentration camp Birkenau in Auschwitz. When Wiesel arrived at camp, his first night turned into something that he will never forget. Wiesel saw the small faces of the children whose bodies were transformed into smoke under a silent sky. “Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams into ashes.”
Throughout the memoir, he struggles with the question of how God could allow such evil to exist, and he grapples with the loss of his own faith in the face of such overwhelming suffering. When Elie sees the burning of innocent children on (pg 33) he says “father if this is how it is then i'm just going to run into the electrical barbed wire fence.” He's giving up; he has nothing to believe in and nothing to live for. The title Night is therefore an extension of this inner darkness, symbolizing the loss of hope and meaning that many Jews experienced as they struggled to make sense of the horrors they
The SS officers bark at the prisoners to quicken their pace as they march through a harsh blizzard, and Eliezer can no longer bear the pain he feels. He desires to end his life by collapsing onto a pillow of snow, but he must keep persist and carry on for his father, as he recalls “The idea of idea of dying began to fascinate me… My father’s presence was the only thing that stopped me” (86). Eliezer had someone worth living for, and he claims his father was the reason he made it out of the concentration camps alive after the Jews were liberated. If it were not for his father, Eliezer may have taken his last breath.
Over 6 million innocent Jews lost their lives due to one man’s greed for power and satisfaction. This horrific event caused many people to be filled with hopelessness, tribulation, and adversity. In the book, “Night”, Elie’s identity was completely altered since the beginning to the end. His faith went from growing stronger every day, to gradually ceasing to exist. Everything that mattered most to him was slowly evaporating away during this life-changing catastrophe.
Night by Elie Wiesel is a powerful memoir that recounts the author's experiences as a young boy during the Holocaust. The book is a poignant reminder of the horrors of war and the devastating consequences of hatred and prejudice. Two significant events from the memoir that impacted Elie on an emotional and personal level are the deportation of his family to Auschwitz and the death of his father. The deportation of Elie's family to Auschwitz was a traumatic event that had a profound impact on him.
Elie was on the brink of death like his father. Even though he wasn’t dead, he could still be dead on the inside. Just being another soul in a body. You can look at yourself and try to put the pieces together but you can’t. What one has witnessed can not be shared but it would be a pity to not share it.
In Elie Wiesel's’ holocaust memoir, Night, the impression of night itself is a constant burden that never seems too far out of reach for Elie. In fact, it is more of a lurking concept that slowly and progressively consumes his childlike idealism, and envelops his inner thoughts, eventually stripping him of his optimism altogether. Despite the fact that some scenes take place in broad daylight, the presence of night is consistent and easily invoked throughout the novel. In the text, night serves as a recurring symbol or motif. The meaning or significance of this in the novel is its representation of both the uncertainty and darkness that are inevitably brought along with the night, which hopelessly surrounds those who suffered as victims in
Dylan Rothman Mrs. Rizk English II 25 January 2023 Night Essay In the novel "Night" by Elie Wiesel, the protagonist, Elie, struggles both spiritually and physically throughout the story. The novel is a memoir of Wiesel's time spent in Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. The physical and spiritual struggles that Elie faces serve as a powerful testimony to the atrocities of the Holocaust and the devastating impact it had on the lives of those who lived through it.
In this book Elie speaks of his hardships and how he survived the concentration camps. Elie quickly changed into a sorrowful person, but despite that he was determined to stay alive no matter the cost. For instance, during the death
In the novel, “Night” Elie Wiesel communicates with the readers his thoughts and experiences during the Holocaust. Wiesel describes his fight for survival and journey questioning god’s justice, wanting an answer to why he would allow all these deaths to occur. His first time subjected into the concentration camp he felt fear, and was warned about the chimneys where the bodies were burned and turned into ashes. Despite being warned by an inmate about Auschwitz he stayed optimistic telling himself a human can’t possibly be that cruel to another human.
One day Eliezer comes to his father’s bed and he is gone most likely taken to the crematory. He doesn't mourn for him and feels bad because of it, but he also feels