Questions On Eliezer Wiesel's 'Night'

Consider how prisoners struggle to maintain their identity under extraordinary conditions.

In this section of the book, Eliezer tells of three fathers and three sons. He speaks of Rabbi Eliahou and his son, of the father whose son killed him for a piece of bread, and finally of his own father and himself. What words does Eliezer use to describe his response to each of the first two stories? How do these stories affect the way he reacts to his father’s illness? To his father’s death?

Eliezer’s response was that he was scared that he would do what others did to their father. He prayed to God “Master of the Universe, give me the strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahou’s son has done” (91). Eliezer cares and protects his father more than ever.

Like on page 105, where he yelled at his father and said “Father! Get up! Right now! You will kill yourself” so basically, he didn’t let his dad just die there. But he stopped caring after his father died (113).
What does Eliezer mean when he writes that he feels free after his father’s death? Is he free of responsibility? Or is he free to go under, to drift into death?
He means that he’s free of responsibility. That finally, no one would hold him back anymore. On page 113, where he said the only one he desire is “to eat. I [he] no longer thought of my father, or my mother.” So meaning, he doesn’t care anymore, since he doesn’t have a family anymore he just wanna eat.
Eliezer later states, “Since my father’s death, nothing mattered to me anymore.” What does he mean by these words? What do they suggest about his struggle to maintain his identity?
Eliezer means that since his father died, he doesn’t care anymore on what’s going to happen to him next. Since his father is the only one he has, he has nothing to lose because his father died. Like in page 113, where he said he shouldn’t describe his life anymore because “It no longer mattered.” It suggests, since without any family left, Eliezer feels that he has lost his identity.

Think about what it means to describe one’s image as a “corpse contemplating me.”
In the next to the last sentence in the book, Eliezer says that when he looks in a mirror after liberation, he sees a corpse contemplating him.

He ends the book by stating, “The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me.” What does that sentence mean?

It means that he still could see how was the holocaust like, the corpses, constant death and misery still haunt him and would never let go him. On page 115, where he said "I wanted to see myself in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto” and after he have seen himself he describe that “a corpse was contemplating” him. Meaning, the holocaust transformed Eliezer into a living corpse, a shadow of his former self.

Why is it important to Eliezer to remember? To tell you his story?

It’s important to Eliezer to remember his past to start or to begin a new life. Remembering helps people recover and accept the past that he has gone through. Also, it’s basically like the Moshe Beadle said in the beginning that he thinks that the reason why he was saved was because to warn the Jews about the Holocaust. So same as to Eliezer, it’s important for him to tell us his story (maybe not to warn us but) to share what happened in concentration camps, to share the stories of those people who had died in the

Holocaust.

Discuss why Wiesel titled his autobiographical story “Night.”
What did the word “night” means to you before you read the book?
The word “night” means to me before, was a literal night. Where sun doesn’t show up but the moon. Where stars starts to be seen if it’s not cloudy. Basically, night is the dark but calm time of the day. Night is the silent part of the day, where everyone gets to rest after a long day.
How has the meaning of the word changed for you?
After reading the book, the meaning of the word suddenly changed to me as death, darkness, and despair of the soul since it’s how is the word “night” described in the book. Most of the events in the book happened in the night to help the readers understand how a calm night could change into a turmoil. That the supposed to be rest part of the day become restless.
How did it change for the author?
Eliezer’s meaning of usual night changed for a matter of reasons. The first one is, it became a torment to him, since most of the things/events that happened in the book was happened at night. The second one is, night became restless to him because he’s mind couldn’t stop thinking of what’s happening. The third is, from the normal night where it should be relaxation, it become wakefulness to them where their starving stomach doesn’t stop from bothering them.