Theme Of Night By Elie Wiesel

In the book Night, Elie Wiesel focuses on the idea of the unknown. It is a recurring theme throughout the text. The book gives many examples of things that are unknown to Elie and the other characters. For example, on page 27, Elie writes, “‘Auschwitz.’ Nobody had ever heard that name before.” This quote tells readers that the characters had no idea about the concentration camp prior to when the person by the window read it out loud. They were unaware of the sinister things taking place in Auschwitz and the danger that was now placed upon them.

In Elie Wiesel’s book Night, there are several themes throughout the entire book. Some of these themes are emotional death, struggle to maintain faith, keeping dignity despite inhumane conditions, and self-preservation vs. family commitment. I feel like self-preservation vs. family commitment is shown the most throughout the book. Many charters throughout the book showed family commitment over self-preservation. The first example is when they first got to Auschwitz during the first selection.

“I don’t know how I survived; I was weak, rather shy; I did nothing to save myself,” - Elie Wiesel. The author of Night, Elie Wiesel, wrote this book to tell the story of what he experienced during the Holocaust. He writes how when he first walked through the gates of what he soon found out was a concentration camp, he was immediately separated from his mother and sisters, and moved to a separate line with his father. He and his father survived the best they could together, until his father could no longer go on and Elie was left to survive on his own with the rest of the prisoners. He survived the beatings, harsh weather, hunger, and overall the concentration camps. He lost his family through the process, but he made it. This makes it very clear that the theme, survival, is important in the book in order to show Elie’s strength and how he fought to stay alive during the duration of time he was held in concentration camps.

People have survived many situations throughout the years. Some of the these situations have been life threatening and some have not been that bad. These situations have left people wrenched, mortified, and distressed. Elie Wiesel in Night is innocent, desperate, and numb. Overall, Wiesel is left broken. Night was written by Elie Wiesel and the book is about his personal experience about being a victim of the Holocaust.

As the famous journalist Iris Chang once said, “As the Nobel Laureate warned years ago, to forget a holocaust is to kill twice.” After experiencing the tragedies that occurred during the Holocaust, Eliezer Wiesel narrated “Night”. Eliezer wrote “Night” in an attempt to prevent something similar to the Holocaust from happening again, by showing the audience what the consequences are that come from becoming a bystander. Elie illustrated numerous themes by narrating the state of turmoil he was in during the Holocaust. In Night, Eliezer provided insight into what he experienced in order to teach the unaware audience about three themes; identity, silence, and faith.

In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie and his family are Jewish and in turn get sent to Birkenau. They were sent to Birkenau because Adolf Hitler had come to power just before World War II. Elie gets separated from his mother and sister who had been sent to the crematory. Elie had been fortunate enough that his father was sent to the same side as him. Wiesel writes about the death of God and his own disgust with humanity, reflected in the inversion of the father son bond, as his father declines to a helpless state and Wiesel becomes his resentful teenage caregiver. The motif is night as a symbol of death. This is shown through his experience at the concentration camp and times on the train.

The book takes place during the span of World War II, and continues through Elie’s perspective, as a prisoner, persecuted due to his religion as a Jewish student. The first main plot line is when Elie and his family are taken from their happy, peaceful lives in the small town of Sighet Transylvania, and are put into a

Robert Shapiro, an American civil litigator once said, “To me, the Holocaust stands alone as the most horrible human event in modern civilization,” The Holocaust, a genocide led by Adolf Hitler, killed six million jews, and dramatically affected the whole world. The memoir “Night,” written by Elie Wiesel describes the brutality Wiesel experienced during the Holocaust, and how life changing it was. Although some may believe the memoir written by Elie Wiesel was titled “Night” because he was forced to leave his home during the night, Wiesel illustrates Jews losing hope, faith, and happiness through the symbol of Night, to prove that the memoir was titled “Night” to symbolize the darkness the holocaust created.

Elie Wiesel’s book “ Night “ takes place during the crucial events of the Holocaust. Elie and his family are taken to a ghetto and later on taken to a concentration camp called Auschwitz. They were taken there for one reason and one reason only, they were jews. Elie witnessed murder and soulless acts at his stay in Auschwitz, death was in the air. Elie and his father only had each other. One theme that is seen throughout the novel is that times like this can bring two people together to build a better relationship.

One of the most tragic themes in Night is Elie’s discovery of the way that atrocities and cruel treatment can break the humanity of decent people turning them into brutes. Throughout his times of hardship, Elie didn't break and he kept his humanity. Tragic events during the story most likely affected him and how he thinks witnessing it at a young age. Elie did many actions to protect and stay with his father and stay sane during the time in the camps. During the long walk after evacuating Auschwitz, the Nazis started a selection to get rid of the weak and continue onward with the strong.

After nearly 2 years of misery, anguish, and despair, a young boy is finally freed to a normal life he had almost forgotten existed. Elie had started to become accustomed to the fact that indifference would be what decides if he survived in the concentration camps or not. In the novel, Wiesel employs the motif of silence to illustrate that silence from the Jews represents the fear, apathy, and the absence of God which results in them constantly feel hopeless and are mentally defeated.

Often, the theme of a novel extends into a deeper significance than what is first apparent on the surface. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the theme of night and darkness is prevalent throughout the story and is used as a primary tool to convey symbolism, foreshadowing, and the hopeless defeat felt by prisoners of Holocaust concentration camps. Religion, the various occurring crucial nights, and the many instances of foreshadowing and symbolism clearly demonstrate how the reoccurring theme of night permeates throughout the novel.

I swore never to remain silent whenever and wherever humans beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.- Elie Weisel

It was in Auschwitz during 1944, at the time of arrival about midnight when the smell of burning flesh saturated the air. There was an unimaginable nightmare of a truck unloading small children and babies thrown into the flames. However, this is only one event in this entire tragedy of events to be remembered in order to understand how deeply literal and symbolic the book entitled Night by Elie Wiesel is. The novel brings light to the reader about what the Jews faced while in the fire, hell and night; nonetheless, the author portrays each and every day during this year as a night in hell of conflagration. "Were this conflagration to be extinguished one day, nothing would be left in the sky but extinct stars and unseeing eyes." (Wiesel 20). When Wiesel arrived at the camp he counted the longest dreadful ten steps of his life; he realized that his nightmare has just become unimaginable.

In this lesson, we will explore three of the major themes of 'Night ' and the imagery that the author, Elie Wiesel, uses to create them. The themes we will discuss are identity, silence, and night.