Night By Elie Wiesel Analysis Essay

Night, by Elie Wiesel is a narrative of his personal sadness, horror, and loss. The tragedy of the Holocaust is something that is hard to comprehend, and hopefully the world will never have to experience that terror and heartbreak again. Though it is hard for those of us who were not involved to understand it fully, Elie Wiesel’s retelling gives the audience a heart wrenching look into his terrifying memories and experiences during World War II. This narrative is full of themes and image patterns of a variety of different subjects, including the theme of soup. There are many ideas people have when they think of soup, such as the simplicity of the dish, the warmth it provides, and even healing when one is sick. While soup may not seem very special

There can be many reasons as to why the soup was not finished, such as the soup tasted badly, the person eating it was distracted and left, or he did not have time to finish it. A half-eaten bowl of soup is the first image of soup in the book Night, and it told a story of much more than met the eye. “On the table, a half-finished bowl of soup” (p.20.M). This half-eaten bowl of soup showed how time was cut short for the family of Elie’s Uncle Mendel. His family was uprooted before they were even able to finish eating a food so simple as soup. It meant that they could not even finish their last family meal in their home before they were rushed out. This meal of unfinished soup may have been the last they spent altogether. Sitting over that half-finished bowl of soup could have been the last time they felt true hope for the end of the war. That bowl held much more than soup, it held the memories of Uncle Mendel’s family, their hope, and the happy times spent in the house, and at that

“I no longer accepted God’s silence. As I swallowed my ration of soup, I turned that into a symbol of rebellion, of protest against Him.” (69. M). On the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur, it is common to fast as a way to honor and revere God. At this point in the narrative, I do not believe that Elie had completely lost his faith, but that he was ready to blatantly rebel against God to show his anger and frustration with God’s apparent silence. As someone who has also felt that God was no longer listening to my prayers or even cared, I understand the frustration that Elie was feeling. Though I did not experience this on the same level as Elie, and I hope no one will ever have to, I do understand what it is like to feel alone and like a stranger in the universe. No longer was Elie the child who refused soup because of the taste, he was now aged prematurely because of the horror he had seen too young, and he could now make the conscious decision to rebel against the God he felt was not listening any