Silence In Elie Wiesel's Night

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When reading Night, one learns that Wiesel, at a young age, suffered in silence. Wiesel was forced to endure death, pain and pure sufferance in silence. According to Cedars, “that is why silence is the language of Wiesel’s first book, Night, as it documents the camp experience that killed his faith ‘forever.’ Its neutral tone is the language of the witness” (294). It is evident that Cedars is arguing that at the time, specifically when trapped at Auschwitz, Wiesel was unable, as well as did not know how to express all the suffering that he was forced to endure. His mind and voice was simply silenced. For that reason, when reading and analyzing Night, one must look for Wiesel’s silence, judgements, self-conflicts, pain and sufferance on each page of his memoir. …show more content…

Such questions should be asked that moment the reader begins to realize that Wiesel begins to question his faith—His God. Why? Think about it: While living in Auschwitz, Wiesel’s covenant between him and God is broken: “The absence of casual connectives is symptomatic of the broken Covenant between God and His people” (Cedars 294). The breaking of the covenant marks the beginning in which Wiesel began to suffer in silence—no longer connected with God. With that being said, to suffer in silence can mean to question the true meaning of life, one’s existence and purpose here on