Chapter 1 Of Night By Elie Wiesel

In chapter 1 of Night by Elie Wiesel, the main theme that is portrayed is that humans tend to deny ugly, painful truths. This is shown through motifs of fire, stars, and sleep. The Jews couldn't believe what they were being told because the statements they were told by Moishe sounded impossible at the time, and that is why the Jews were in denial. One of the incidents, when the Jews were in denial, was when Moishe went around telling the people in the ghettos that they all are going to burn, one of the people that did not believe him said, He's just trying to make us pity him, what an imagination he has!”(Wiesel 17). Moishe replied by saying, “Jews, listen to me. It's all I ask of you. I don't want money or pity. Only listen to me”(Wiesel 17).

The townspeople still denied that there were concentration camps that they could be affected by. The townspeople, blinded by denial, could not see that Moishe was not telling them crazy things for attention but to save them. He also did not care for his life since all his loved ones were lost in the concentration camps. He was very selfless when spreading the bad news. In the spring of 1944, the Hungarian government fell into the hands of the Fascists, and the next day the German armies occupied Hungary. Despite the Jewish belief that Nazi anti-Semitism would be limited to the capital city, Budapest, the Germans soon moved into Sighet. Increasing series of oppressive measures were forced on the Jews—the community leaders were arrested, Jewish valuables confiscated, and all Jews were forced to wear yellow stars. Eventually, the Jews got put into small ghettos, and crowded into narrow streets behind barbed-wire fences. The barbed wire fences "did not cause [the Jews]us any real fear." Wiesel's father says, “'The yellow star? So what? It’s not

This quote is a metaphor for the holocaust. Specifically, where he mentions that flames are consuming them, then continues to say that the flames are extinguished, liquidating all beings. The night is a constant symbol in this book, standing for darkness, blindness, evil, loss, death, and silence. It is ironic how he had mentioned he wanted to prolong the night. In other words, Wiesel wanted the darkness and evil to last longer, but he has yet to see the lowest lows of the night. There is an almost obsessive quality to Wiesel's description of night and day. He recounts every single dusk, night, and dawn. From the time that the Germans invade Sighet to the time that he is taken away by train. This focus on the sleep cycle emphasizes the hours the Jews spent waiting for their uncertain future, and it successfully recreates the feeling of days dragging on endlessly yet inexorably. Wiesel cannot stop time. By marking it in intervals in his novel, he increases the sense of impending doom. And ironically, though the days seem drawn out and monotonous, everything happens, changing their lives almost instantaneously in just a short