Night By Elie Wiesel Night Themes

“Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for an eternity of the desire to live” (Wiesel 34). Wiesel’s quote deliberately expresses such solemnity that it not only shows the severity of the Holocaust but imbues the idea of dark thoughts that the reader could only imagine the feeling. The terrorizing nature of the Holocaust scarred all who experienced including Wiesel that he felt the need to share his story to prevent the ignorance of the event. In Night, Elie Wiesel’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning memoir, it follows Wiesel’s own story in a concentration camp during the Holocaust with his father. The memoir expresses the incredibly awful conditions the people in Auschwitz are subject to and focuses on the acts of terror and injustice

Life is Beautiful depicts an Italian Jewish man who goes through a series of coincidental life choices and eventually has to attempt to protect his young son during their time in a concentration camp by playing the scenario off as a game in which is won by receiving 1000 points the quickest. In the end, he sacrifices himself for the survival of his son. Night and Life is Beautiful both accurately exhibit a theme of sacrifice while being a useful device in initiating pity into its audience. A contrasting theme for the opposing works is the way each work shows the effects of constant death as it surrounds the stories. The memoir, Night, and film, Life is Beautiful, are homologous while heeding the theme of sacrifice to spread pity into the audience, and differentiate with the idea of showing the effect of death to its

Wiesel’s purpose in writing his memoir, Night, is to inform readers of the dark history of the world and to show that such atrocious, unimaginable things can and have been done just for the ideals of one man seeking power and that he has witnessed and had to live through that time as one of its victims. Benigni’s purpose in producing the film Life is beautiful is to convey the idea that there is always a need for humor even in the darkest situations when in need of giving hope to others. History through the accounts of those who lived it is more influential and factual that those who claim to be masters of the knowledge from that era. Stories like these show that we can learn from the mistakes of the past. Relationships, even those that once were lost to contradictions in ideas and love, are important for human survival. These types of stories show that relationship therapy in the harshest conditions can work but may not be seen as needed. These stories teach us that to be human is to realize the mistakes of the past and to fix ourselves as we experience the event and to show compassion no matter the horrors we