What Does The Fire Symbolize In The Book Night By Elie Wiesel

Yashika Kumar

Mr. Martin

Period 6/7 Humanities 10

17th April 2023

Night

The Holocaust is an extremely important event in our history that took place during World War 2. Known for its brutality against Jews, the crime of antisemitism was conducted by a mass genocide led by Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi political party in Germany. The systematic murder of six million jews in the span of 11 years took many innocent lives and left many alone and scarred for life. Elie Wiesel, one of the survivors of this brutality, and the author of the book Night narrates his journey from him, and his family being forced out of his hometown to the camp at Auschwitz where him and millions of other Jews were forced into labor, treated like objects, and,

The usage of this occurred in the first couple of pages when Madame Schachter screamed, she could see a fire from the train: “Jews, listen to me.” She cried. “I see a fire! I see flames, huge flames” (25) She repeatedly screamed in terror throughout the cattle car ride to Auschwitz. Many were confused, and others were too scared to care. The fire seen by Madame Schachter is later recognized as many forms in the book. The horrors and dangers caused to the lives of the people who were transported to the camps were slowly eased into Elie’s realization. For instance, when Elie first arrives at the camp, he witnesses infants being thrown into massive fires: “Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.” (22). This was when he and the ones confined in the camp alongside realized the cruelty and horror they had been put into. At a young age, Elie witnessed the horrifying treatment of people around him influenced the way he viewed the world. Seeing kids younger than him first be separated from his parents, and then put through such torturous death, made him redefine the word “god” as well. Which leads to how the word “fire” also symbolizes the destruction of Elie’s faith, a huge part of his identity throughout the book. Elie was a young Jewish boy who always prioritized his god and family first. However, when he saw the kids being tossed into the fire, he started to feel differently about God. “For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?” (33). Since the beginning of the book Night, Elie has openly shared his love for God, making the reader believe how much his faith is a part of his identity. But this incident was a huge reason for the distance created between Elie’s faith in his