How Does Elie Wiesel Use Motifs In Night

Eyes are described as “the windows to the soul” in many works. In Night, a memoir by Elie Wiesel, it is a common motif. The book focuses on the story of Eliezer, a young boy, during the bulk of the Holocaust. It tells how he made it through the first days in the concentration camp and all of the tragedy that occurred during his experience there. Throughout the novel, the author uses eyes to describe the emotions and feelings of many of the novel’s characters. In the memoir Night, Elie Wiesel uses the motif of eyes to show the way that the Holocaust destroyed its victim’s view of humanity. The most powerful example of the eyes motif is in the first chapter of the book, when Moishe the Beadle returns to the village after being expelled

He hasn’t looked at himself since the Ghettos, and he is very surprised by what he sees. The author writes, “From the depths of the mirror, a corpse contemplated me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me,” (115). This shows how the main character of our story has been affected by the horrors of the Holocaust. He doesn’t recognize himself, or the person he has become after all this time. He sees himself as just another corpse, killed by the conditions of the oppression that the followers of Hitler’s agenda bestowed upon him and other members of the Jewish population. He doesn’t feel human. That is what the Holocaust did- it robbed people of not only their lives, but of their whole sense of humanity. In the memoir Night, Elie Wiesel uses eyes of Holocaust victims to show us what the tragedies they experienced did to Jews, and their view on the world. This shows that if people live through oppression and tragedy, it can change and impact who they are and how they see the world. They can become extensions of themselves, with the same face and skin but with a loss of morality and different mindset. With a new way of life. WIth different eyes, but with the same scarred heart beating rhythmically in their