Tone In Elie Wiesel's Night

In Night, Elie Wiesel uses tone to express the emotions he felt and explain the situations he endured during the Holocaust. The most prevalent tones in the book are anguish and hopelessness, but many more are also present. At the beginning of the book, Wiesel’s tone is more optimistic towards his situation and hopeful for a better outcome, but as the book progresses, Wiesel changes the tone to one of dreariness and hopelessness due to the new environments and events he endures.
Wiesel sets the tone at the beginning of the book by expressing his town’s optimism towards the oncoming occupation by the Germans. He writes that, although his town was warned multiple times about Germany’s advancements toward them, “optimism soon revived: The Germans will not come this far. They will stay in Budapest” (Wiesel 9). The townspeople refused to believe that they were in danger. Their faith in God made them

believe they were invincible to the Germans which proved to be detrimental. These warnings gave them multiple chances to flee to somewhere safe, but because they believed so heavily that nothing bad would happen to them, they missed their chances to survive. Also, Wiesel’s father tried to instill optimism in the town by insisting the edicts that the Germans imposed were nothing to worry about. When the Jews were forced to wear gold stars, he told the townspeople “The yellow star? So what? It’s not lethal…” (11). His optimistic view of the gold star backfired when new edicts were imposed on the Jews because they were all much worse. The townspeople had little hope and optimism after the ghettos were created in Sighet.
As the book continues, Wiesel’s tone changes drastically from that of hopefulness and optimism to sadness and anguish.

On the first night in Auschwitz-Birkenau, Wiesel feels his life beginning to change forever, saying “never shall i forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed” (34). Although he has only been in the camp one day, he feels broken and hopeless. Everything in his life has changed and he will never be the same again. Additionally, his perception of time becomes very skewed due to the hard labor and anguish he endures. He cannot remember how long he had been away from home, saying “so many events had taken place in just a few hours that I had completely lost all notion of time. When had we left our homes? And the ghetto? And the train? Only a week? One single night?” (37). Because of the trauma that he had experienced in such a short period of time, Wiesel could not tell how long he had been at the camp. This skewed perception of time adds to the dreariness and anguish Wiesel feels throughout the

book.
Throughout the book, Wiesel’s tone changes from hopeful to hopeless. Because of his changing situations, his attitude changes with it. He and the townspeople of Sighet feel optimistic about their situation at the beginning of the book, but towards the middle and end, they are hopeless and broken.