Deceit In Night By Elie Wiesel

Ben Romanowsky

Mr. Raisner

AS English II 1st Period

22 March 2023 Finding Hope Amidst Tragedy

In our society, deception is often mistakenly associated with negative connotations, where people tend to view those who practice deceit as being of lower character. On the contrary, deceit can be a coping mechanism and therefore seen as a positive and healthy way to change one mentality, especially amidst less-than-satisfactory circumstances. In Elie Wiesel's Night, the novel follows the protagonist, Eliezer living during the events of the Holocaust. During this time in history, Jews were targeted strictly because of their religious beliefs. Eliezer, being a Hungarian Jew was one of the millions of Jews targeted. Throughout his journey,

As the soup is served day after day, each soup eaten is another day of survival and therefore hope. Initially, Eliezer views the soup as his only way of survival, like after he is threatened to get his gold tooth pulled out by the concentration camps’ dentist: “At that moment in time, all that mattered to me was my daily bowl of soup..” (52). Near the beginning of Eliezer’s experience in Buna, the soup he ate each day and night is seen as a milestone to reach day after day. For Eliezer, the soup he eats was his only purpose. Eliezer still believes he didn’t have a purpose, other than feeding his stomach. He soon realized that the soup he eats not only fed his stomach but figuratively fed his mentality, giving him optimism he can outlast the tragic Holocaust. One visual changes how he viewed the soup forever. Having witnessed the hanging of a young boy along with the rest of the Jews, Eliezer reflects on the tragic event and realizes how fortunate he is to be alive today. After the Jews are permitted to return to their blocks, Eliezer was served a meal: "On that evening, the soup tasted better than ever" (61). Reflecting on the young boy who had just been hanged, Eliezer begins to appreciate the little details of life in the Buna concentration camp through self-deception. This deception is evident when he describes the soup as tasting delicious

It is evident that throughout the novel, night symbolizes a sense of darkness and despair. Through self-deception, Eliezer counteracts the nighttime with the thought that daylight will come each day. To Eliezer, the morning symbolizes a new start and another day of hope of outlasting the horrors of the Holocaust: “The night had passed completely. The morning star shone in the sky. I too had become a different person” (37). Through the act of deceiving himself, Eliezer realizes that the morning is all Eliezer needs to look forward to. Using deception, Eliezer convinces himself that if he makes it to morning, his optimism will remain. Furthermore, Eliezer concludes that if he sleeps through the hopelessness of the night and makes it to the morning, he is capable of achieving anything, including escaping the Holocaust. Near the end of the novel, when aspects of Eliezer’s life in the concentration camp did not go as planned, the morning remained a symbol of hope: “When I woke up, it was daylight. That is when I remembered I had a father…I knew he was running out of strength, close to death, and yet I abandoned him” (106). Since Eliezer previously establishes the morning as a sense of hope along with new opportunities, through self-deception, he is able to realize the risk his father is in. Now that Eliezer accepts daylight