Throughout recorded history, humans and animals have feared the onslaught of the bitter cold, harbinger of death for many with whom it came in contact. This primal association between the cold and death is firmly ingrained in every living creature on the planet, and cold weather has remained an extremely prolific killer since the beginning of life itself. Elie Wiesel expertly toys with this natural correlation in his seminal work, Night, which serves as an autobiographical reflection on his experiences as a young boy imprisoned in Auschwitz between the years of 1944 and 1945. In the dark, frozen recesses of Southern Poland, Wiesel bared witness to the deadly might of the cold on a multitude of occasions. Within the context of the novel, however, …show more content…
Upon exhaustedly stumbling into an abandoned camp following the long and treacherous night march from Auschwitz to Buna, Elie explains that “[o]nly now did I see the full extent of my weakness. The snow seemed to me like a very soft, warm blanket”, after which he is warned by his father “[i]t’s dangerous to fall asleep in the snow. One falls asleep forever” (88). In other words, Elie is drawn in by the bizarrely comforting spell of the snow; drawn in to give up, die, and end his suffering, only prevented from doing so by the words of his father. Elie struggles in a difficult battle against his own weakness, a side of himself from which he had previously gone to all ends to avoid confronting. The element of cold is utilized poignantly within this scene, reflecting both the weakness within Elie, as well as the encroaching spirit of death surrounding him and his father on all sides. This provides a more literally-grounded example of the way by which Wiesel associates the cold with the spiritual death of the Jewish people during the Holocaust, associating the snow with absolute weakness, exhaustion, surrender to the elements, and the complete breakdown of the human psyche. This scene is echoed at a later point in the novel, with Elie’s exclamation: “[t]hey’re dead! They will never wake up! Never! Don’t you understand?” (105). This is in reference to his father, who, similar to Elie in the scene at the abandoned camp, has by this point collapsed in utter weakness following the acceptance of several brutal beatings by Nazi officers, and crawled into a mound of snow to await his eventual demise. Despite Elie’s ardent pleas, his father his clearly very near death, and remains motionless in the snow, his last reserves of strength leeched from him. This example
Elie’s loss of innocence and childhood lifestyle is very pronounced within the book, Night. This book, written by the main character, Elie Wiesel, tells the readers about the experiences of Mr. Wiesel during the Holocaust. The book starts off by describing Elie’s life in his hometown, Sighet, with his family and friends. As fascism takes over Hungary, Elie and his family are sent north, to Auschwitz concentration camp. Elie stays with his father and speaks of his life during this time. Later, after many stories of the horrors and dehumanizing acts of the camp, Elie and his father make the treacherous march towards Gliewitz. Then they are hauled to Buchenwald by way of cattle cars in extremely deplorable conditions, even by Holocaust standards. The book ends as Elie’s father is now dead and the American army has liberated them. As Elie is recovering in the hospital he gazes at himself in a mirror, he subtly notes he much he has changed. In Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie loses his innocence and demeanour because he was traumatized by what he saw in the camps, his loss of faith in a God who stood idly by while his people suffered, and becoming selfish as he is forced to become selfish in the death camps to survive.
He is taken to a hospital in order to treat his malnutrition, wounds, and disease. After weeks of constant care, doctors cleared Wiesel and he was able to look at himself in a mirror for the first time in a few years. As he stares at himself in disbelief, he says, “From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me.” (115). Once again, the author was able to incorporate a metaphor that describes his body’s condition as it did not strictly resemble a corpse. This metaphor also symbolizes the mental, physical, and spiritual “death” that Elie has gone through during the story. The reader is not told whether Wiesel regained his faith in God, but is led to believe that he was able to survive based on his relentless love for his
As a son watches his mother take her last breath on her deathbed, an overwhelming grief sets in. Although knowing that his mom smokes and drinks, he never told her to quit or ease up because he thought his mother can never die. In this case, the offset of this denial is his mom’s early death but, the denial by the Jews during 1942, caused a far more superior calamity, six million deaths! Alas, just like the boy who lost his mother, the Jews have signs and warnings to escape the invasion and Elie Wiesel does a superb job of incorporating that in his book, Night. These overlooked chances, or motifs, are Moshe not getting the respect for his word, uncomprehending the news that is given to the Jews, and the misjudgment of how evil a man Hitler is.
In the memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel remembers his time at Auschwitz during the Holocaust. Elie begins to lose his faith in God after his faith is tested many times while at the concentration camp. Elie conveys to us how horrific events have changed the way he looks at his faith and God. Through comments such as, “Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God, my soul, and turned my dreams into dust,” he reveals the toll that the Holocaust has taken on him. The novel begins during the years of 1942-1944 in Sighet, Transylvannia, Romania. Elie Wiesel and his family are deported and Elie is forced to live through many horrific events. Several events such as deportation, seeing dead bodies while at Auschwitz, and separation from his mother and sisters, make Elie start to question his absolute faith in God.
So as the morning Sun rose. The light beamed on Christopher's face. The warmth of the sun welcomed him to a new day and woke up in a small house in Los Angeles. Christopher is a tall, male, that loves technology and video games. He stretched and went to the restroom it was 9 o'clock and he was thankful it was spring break and didn’t have to go to school. Christopher made his way to the kitchen trying not wake up his parents and made himself breakfast. He served himself cereal Honey Bunches of Oats to be exact with almond milk. Then he took a shower and watched some YouTube videos before doing his homework.
It is reported that over 6 million Jews were brutally murdered in the Holocaust, but there were a very few who were able to reach the liberation, and escape alive. There were many important events that occurred in Elie Wiesel’s Night, and for each and every event, I was equally, if not more disturbed than the one before. The first extremely disturbing event became a reality when Eliezer comprehended that there were trucks filled with babies that the Nazi’s were throwing the children into the crematorium. Unfortunately, the sad truth of the murdering babies was clearly presented through, “Not far from us, flames, huge flames, were rising from a ditch. Something was being burned there, […] babies”, (Wiesel, Night, 32). This was one of the most disturbing events of the narrative for myself and truly explained the cruelty and torture of the Holocaust.
The significance of night throughout the novel Night by Elie Wiesel shows a poignant view into the daily life of Jews throughout the concentration camps. Eliezer describes each day as if there was not any sunshine to give them hope of a new day. He used the night to symbolize the darkness and eeriness that were brought upon every Jew who continued to survive each day in the concentration camps. However, night was used as an escape from the torture Eliezer and his father had to endure from the Kapos who controlled their barracks. Nevertheless, night plays a developmental role of Elie throughout he novel.
Could you imagine a cold breeze that just cuts you up left and right? Or perhaps long days of starvation, with the sight of grass pleasing your stomach. For Elie Wiesel this was no imagination, nor a dream, this was in fact reality. Such a horrifying experience in his life he felt he had to share in a book called Night. Gertrude Samuels, who wrote the review, "When Evil Closed In," tries to help you depict on what devastating situations Elie was put through.
As humans, we require basic necessities, such as food, water, and shelter to survive. But we also need a reason to live. The reason could be the thought of a person, achieving some goal, or a connection with a higher being. Humans need something that drives them to stay alive. This becomes more evident when people are placed in horrific situations. In Elie Wiesel's memoir Night, he reminisces about his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust. There the men witness horrific scenes of violence and death. As time goes on they begin to lose hope in the very things that keep them alive: their faith in God, each other, and above all, themselves.
This is Wiesel’s “dark time of life” and through his journey into night he can’t see the “light” at the end of the tunnel, only continuous dread and darkness. Night is a memoir that is written in the style of a bildungsroman, a loss of innocence and a sad coming of age. This memoir reveals how Eliezer (Elie Wiesel) gradually loses faith and relationships with both his father (dad), and his Father (God). Sickened by the torment he must endure, Wiesel questions if God really exists, “Why, but why should I bless him? Because he, in his great might, had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many other factories of death?
In Elie Wiesel’s Night, he recounts his horrifying experiences as a Jewish boy under Nazi control. His words are strong and his message clear. Wiesel uses themes such as hunger and death to vividly display his days during World War II. Wiesel’s main purpose is to describe to the reader the horrifying scenes and feelings he suffered through as a repressed Jew. His tone and diction are powerful for this subject and envelope the reader. Young readers today find the actions of Nazis almost unimaginable. This book more than sufficiently portrays the era in the words of a victim himself.
Elie Wiesel writes about his personal experience of the Holocaust in his memoir, Night. He is a Jewish man who is sent to a concentration camp, controlled by an infamous dictator, Hitler. Elie is stripped away everything that belongs to him. All that he has worked for in his life is taken away from him instantly. He is even separated from his mother and sister. On the other side of this he is fortunate to survive and tell his story. He describes the immense cruel treatment that he receives from the Nazis. Even after all of the brutal treatment and atrocities he experiences he does not hate the world and everything in it, along with not becoming a brute.
Night is the true story of what Elie Wiesel went through during World War II. this book was first written in french, in 1955 and then translated english in 1958. during world war II, the jews were naive and hoped for better times. Even though the situation was always getting worse. In night, Wiesel describes elements of the war that any survivor knew about. he shows us how before the war nobody could imagine such horrible events occurring. the book sends a message stating that everything bad was happening around them the jews were still hoping for better times. Wiesel shows us that still believed in humanity, they did not think such bad events can occur and how even though they had multiple chance of escaping they did not.
Many themes exist in Night, Elie Wiesel’s nightmarish story of his Holocaust experience. From normal life in a small town to physical abuse in concentration camps, Night chronicles the journey of Wiesel’s teenage years. Neither Wiesel nor any of the Jews in Sighet could have imagined the horrors that would befall them as their lived changed under the Nazi regime. The Jews all lived peaceful, civilized lives before German occupation. Eliezer Wiesel was concerned with mysticism and his father was “more involved with the welfare of others than with that of his own kin” (4). This would change in the coming weeks, as Jews are segregated, sent to camps, and both physically and emotionally abused. These changes and abuse would dehumanize men and cause them to revert to basic instincts. Wiesel and his peers devolve from civilized human beings to savage animals during the course of Night.
Night is a memoir written by Elie Wiesel. This autobiography of Wiesel’s life manages to reach the perfect balance between an in-depth story and simplistic writing. The novel tells of a young Elie’s journey from the invasion of his tight knit Jewish community in Sighet to the numerous concentration camps he was taken to. One camp was Auschwitz, where his mother and younger sister Tzipora were separated from him and his father. Later on, Elie and his father were taken to Camp Buna, a sub-camp of Auschwitz. Finally, Elie was taken to his third and last camp, Buchenwald. Buchenwald is where Elie’s father ultimately died of dysentery, only days before the American troops came to release them. In Night, Elie Wiesel uses the title night to symbolize the darkness of these events and the lifelessness of faith.