Meaning Of The Title Night By Elie Wiesel

The novel, "Night," by Elie Wiesel incorporates an abundance of dark ideas though the title of the novel. Wiesel named the first novel of his series "Night" because of the darkness portrayed in his character throughout the drastic changes in his beliefs and faith. The year of 1944, Elie Wiesel came face-to-face with the first concentration camp he would inhabit, Auschwitz. It's around this time that his humanness begins deteriorating. Along with himself, he also loses grasp of his faith. Before boarding the cart that would lead him to death, Elie describes the luggage and personal belongings being left behind and forgotten on the ground. This scene is a consequential representation of the dehumanization beginning to take place. And as he transfers

For example, Mrs. Schächter claims of seeing fire hours before arriving to the death camp, and upon arrival, Wiesel describes a fire blazing in the night, accompanied with the stench of burning flesh. These burning furnaces are first introduced during the night to affiliate the idea of death and darkness with the title of the novel. The title of the novel also comes into play every time dehumanization or loss of faith is mentioned. This is exhibited when Elie witnesses a death that is different from all the others he has witnessed. "'For God's sake, where is God?' And from within me, I heard a voice answer: 'where he is? This is where— hanging here from this gallows...'" (Wiesel 65). This symbolizes the death of Elie's beliefs in his God. Hope represents light and when there is nothing to believe in, there is no hope. This scene demonstrates the abandonment of hope, giving the camp a setting of complete darkness. At this point, there is no life around Elie, just walking corpses dehumanized and emaciated, almost resembling Hell. Once Elie is liberated from the camp, he states "from the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me" (Wiesel