'Symbolism In Elie Wiesel's Night'

448 Words2 Pages

Alienation occurs when someone is separated from society. Symbolism is the use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities. Everyday we hear of people being mistreated and harmed, yet we know very little of people’s personal experience of the event. To help us understand, authors use symbolism. In Night, we read of the experiences that Eliezer went through, and how it separated him from God. Also, in the movie/book The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, we saw the author use symbolism to show us what was actually happening. These two groundbreaking authors use symbolism to show us friendship, trust, and dehumanization. In Night, Eliezer and his father are trying to survive the cataclysm that occurred to the Jewish population and the others in the camp. There were multiple examples of symbolism. However, a very prominent one is the title of the book. Night is dark and the characters can never see the monsters lurking in the dark. Night also represents the death of innocence, childhood, faith, and millions of people. Most of all it depicts that the Jews feel an absence of God. In the book, Eliezer writes, “Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust.” This delineates that he is separated from his dreams, his hope, his soul, and most importantly his God. …show more content…

Yet, Bruno’s father runs the camp that Shmuel is in. This story represents two unlikely friends that changed the boundaries between the Jewish and the German. One symbol that the author used is the fences. The fences separated the Jews from the outside. In the movie, bruno asked him,”Are you not allowed out? Why? What have you done?” , and Shmuel replies with, “I'm a Jew.” During this scene, it seems as if Bruno is starting to see what is really going on. It separated the world from the other and made Shmuel, along with the others,