The book Night by Elie Wiesel is an incredibly written memoir about his struggle through the Holocaust. I have chosen to look at the motifs in this memoir. A motif is symbol or image that is constantly referred to in the text. In this paper we will focus on the motif of night and it’s significance to the story telling.
So, how was Wiesel denied his individuality? Well in the book it says “ We no longer have the right to frequent restaurants or cafes, to travel by rail, to attend synagogue, to be on the streets after six o’clock in the evening.” (Wiesel 11). The way this quote from the book proves that he was denied individuality is that the Jews didn’t have a choice about what they could and could not do while the Nazis took over. Then soon after, the ghettos were made and every single Jew was forced to live there for three days.
In concentration camps, young adults were very useful for the Nazis, because they could serve as laborers, but elderly people were useless to them and would end up in the crematory fast. This shows how the Nazis would only spare your life if you were useful to them, but it shows the dehumanization of the people in these horror fullied camps. The way children and adults are connected in Night is through father and son relationships. Eliezer is able to stay with his father through most of his journey, but the way he views his father changes throughout the time he spends in the camps. He starts looking to his father for support and answers but ends up just seeing him as a
Night, by Elie Wiesel shows how traumatic events can bring families closer together through the character relationships of Elie and his father, as well as through the sinister setting of the concentration camps. The characters are the main way that Elie shows the development of a father-son relationship, however the shift in the relationship wouldn't be possible without the horrid setting that the characters had to live through. The characters in Night show how bad times can lead to a positive development in relationships. Before Elie and his father arrived at the camps, they had a strained relationship.
For every individual, it is difficult to give up two than one. In the novel Night, by Elie Wiesel, Elie magnanimously inputs his blood and sweat by sacrificing his strength and rations for the survival of his father. He holds unconditional hopes of believing that he will be able to make not only himself survive through the brutal camps under German control, but also his father through his efforts. Through this, Elie uses the relationship with his father to suggest that individuals should be independent for better survival because it is more efficient to create a single, strong individual rather than two weak ones. Elie may have continuously helped his father in lengthening his endurance, but failed to straighten his father’s will.
Eliezer and his father rely on one another to survive through the Holocaust. Together they encounter the cruelty of the Nazis, the lack of compassion from the prisoners, as well as the difficulty of simply surviving. They remain strong together unlike other father-son relationships seen in the novel. A majority of the prisoners gravitate towards self preservation while Eliezer chooses to remain with his father. Eliezer does exhibit ambivalence in continuing to help his father because the conditions of the Holocaust continually make it harder to make others a priority than oneself.
Eliezer: Eliezer is the narrator of Night and the supposed representation of the author. Eliezer is a Jewish teenager living in X during this story and the account is told from his perspective. Eliezer’s journey from a teenager being taught in the ways of his religion before the Holocaust makes him question his teachings and his very faith in a God who would allow such atrocities. Despite the horrors that he endures, Eliezer manages to cling to his own humanity and his love for his father.
How does a person become inhuman? The Holocaust is a well known and prime example of groups of people and ethnicities being treated inhumanely by taking them from their homes, sent to concentration camps, and millions of those people being killed by the Schutzstaffle–otherwise known as the SS–from the Nazi party dictated by Adolf Hitler. Throughout his life and his memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel shows how someone's humanity can be taken away through the way they are treated. They can be stripped of their individuality, treated as if they are automatons, and ignored by those who are indifferent. In the memoir, Wiesel’s identity and individuality is taken away when he gets a number tattooed on his left arm that he is referred to instead of being
Despite 10,000,000 Jewish people going into the holocaust, only about 40% made it out alive. The Nazis would seperate families by killing their family members in order to make the Jewish people feel alone and isolated . Elie Weisel uses themes of isolation in his memoir, Night, to aid to development of the plot and to show the horrors of the Holocaust. The book Night covers Elie and his family's experience during WWII and their experience during the Holocaust.
It is a common assumption among numerous people in the world that the Holocaust never existed. In fact, almost fifty percent of the world population never even heard of the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel helped people around the world learn about the Holocaust through his book “Night.” He wanted people to see the bravery, courage, and guilt of the Jews through his book. “Night” shows the horrific and malicious acts in the German concentration camps during the Holocaust.
Night is told from the first person perspective of a twelve year old Jewish boy. In Night, Jews were discriminated against, captured and sent to concentration camps. Families were separated, women and children were killed and men played a game of survival of the fittest, in hopes of seeing better days. The “strongest” got to stay alive and were moved to another concentration campus, which might have been worse than the last, while the weaker ones were killed. Justice was presented at the advantage of the stronger in this novel because eventually Eliezer, the narrator was freed and able to account the horrible story of previous happenings.
Night is a memoir of a Jewish boy who lives to see the horrors during the Holocaust. He tells an emotional tale of his scarring experiences at multiple concentration camps. He begins with his family in his hometown of Sighet, where they are forced into supervised ghettos. The authorities then begin shipping the Jews into concentration camps, in which he is separated from his mother and sister. He and his dad are then forced to Auschwitz, where they begin their series of struggles.
Night by Elie Wiesel shows when humans are put in horrible situations, the acts of selfishness greatly increase. The book shows that when humans are in crisis like the Holocaust everyone is desperate to survive, so they will do anything they can to get their basic needs. The people forgot who they are as human, and how it made Elie and others act differently towards each other. Elie Wiesel, and everyone who he meets along the way want to survive this, at times they forget why they want to live. But no one wants to get defeated by the Germans.
Does the author use any rhetorical devices? Give two examples of ethos, pathos, or logos of each device. Do explain and justify why you think that example is logos or pathos, or ethos. The author uses ethos regularly in the novel Night.
To find a man who has not experienced suffering is impossible; to have man without hardship is equally unfeasible. Such trials are a part of life and assert that one is alive by shaping one’s character. In the autobiographical memoir Night by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, this molding is depicted through Elie’s transformation concerning his identity, faith, and perspective. As a young boy, Elie and his fellow neighbors of Sighet, Romania were sent to Auschwitz, a macabre concentration camp with the sole motive of torturing and killing Jews like himself. There, Elie experiences unimaginable suffering, and upon liberation a year later, leaves as a transformed person.
