The element of symbolism is so strong and predominant in the novel “Night,” we are able to delve deeper into the heinous experiences the Jews were subjected to during the Holocaust. There is no sure way to empathize with the victims of the Holocaust, but survivor Elie Wiesel opens the eyes of the reader to so many encounters that the Jews had to face in order to survive. Wiesel was able to portray individual emotions while using tangible objects or acts. Elie’s father, the march of the Jews, and the fire in the story all represent a deeper interpretation of themselves.
The use of the word night can be interpreted as the unknown, and fear that is invoked because of it. In the second chapter of Night, Wiesel describes a scene on the train, the beginning of their journey, “some [were] pressed against the bars to see, there was nothing. Only the darkness of night.” On the train, it is night, dark, and the prisoners cannot see. The prisoners are also do not know what is going to happen to them; ergo, their future is dark and unknown.
Prisoners in Auschwitz received about three “meals” a day. Half a liter of “coffee” for breakfast, and a liter of soup for the noon meal. For dinner, the prisoners usually received about 10 ounces of black bread, with 25 grams of sausage or margarine, or a tablespoon of marmalade of cheese. The small amount of food prisoners got in concentration camps caused them to starve. In the story, Night, the absence of food caused Eliezer and others around him to slowly change themselves and their morales, hoping for a little extra soup or a crust of bread.
In the 1956 memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel, he illustrates that witnessing human cruelty was his traumatizing memory of the Holocaust. Weisel supports his illustration through the use of symbolism, which demonstrates that witnessing human cruelty had more effect on him that anything else he will ever experience. He uses the flames that he saw as a symbol for the atrocities that he saw, because the flames themselves were the first example of cruelty that he ever witnessed. The author’s purpose is to explain why he will never forget “that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night”, so that the reader can understand the consequences of cruelty. Instead of simply stating that the cruelty he witnessed tore his dreams
"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night"(Wiesel 34). Through Elie Wiesel’s witness of a genocide of his own people, the horrors that became his reality for a period of time was a never ending series of darkness. In his memoir Night, Wiesel uses night to symbolize a period of suffering and despair during his experience through the Holocaust. Night also symbolizes the darkness and hole left in Wiesel after this disaster has occured. Many survivors of the Holocaust are still terrified to tell their stories based on the fact that what they experienced still remains shocking to express.
In brief, this story is labeled “night”, the author is Elie Wiesel. The tone of this story is intimate, and affectionate, it characterizes the extraordinary painful and personal experience of a single victim. The setting first takes place in Sighet, Transylvania, and then Elie is transported to several concentration camps such as Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Gleiwitz; he spends the time there in the years 1941-1945, during World War II. Eliezer struggled to maintain faith in a caring God; Silence; Inhumanity to other humans. The first symbolism is fire; Madame Schachter foreshadows death and horror “look, look at it, fire, a terrible fire, mercy, oh that fire”.
In the short novel, Night by Elie Wiesel, the author discusses an event of tremendous scarring effect to him and all those unfortunate to be caught in it’s scourge, The Holocaust. From the new age diaspora, death marches, cremation, and many other tyrannical actions from the German Reich that left all witnesses traumatized. These horrendous acts brought out a primal version of self preservation in the prisoners. The prisoners self preservation is displayed through their fight for rations of bread, their relentless labor to avoid the path to death that is tested by Dr. Mengele, leading the prisoners ultimately to the crematorium.
The symbol is Night, the title of the book is also a symbol. Wiesel wanted to use this symbol to respond to what happened at night. Wiesel wanted to tell the reader what he had to do with his new headlines in the evening. Wiesel said the evening experience "made my life a long night, sealed seven times. " The author began to doubt that God could help him get rid of despair and pain, because he appeared in a long suffering and never saw the so-called God.
“Never shall I forget the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed, and seven times sealed” (Wiesel 32). As portrayed in this passage from Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night, “night” is used numerous times as a central symbol. The nonfiction novel takes place during the Holocaust throughout several concentration camps. The word “night” literally means the period of darkness in each twenty-four hours; the time from sunset to sunrise, but symbolically it commonly represents sadness, fear, and negative commendations.
“Yes, you can lose somebody overnight, yes, your whole life can be turned upside down. Life is short. It can come and go like a feather in the wind. ”- Shania Twain.
Before I begin discussing about the symbolism in Night, I want to point out the importance of symbolism in any form of storytelling, and even in reality. In a way, symbolism is what makes ordinary objects or symbols into meaning. Symbolism can make anything as powerful as actual words. In that sense, symbolism creates the story being read. I believe a story can become more powerful and more touching if there is a very symbolic object or symbol involved.
God Help Us Through its survivors, memories of the Holocaust live on today. During World War II, Adolf Hitler was destined to exterminate all Jewish communities in occupied Europe. Nazi Germany began this exterminated in concentration camps, which eventually became death camps. Elie Wiesel, a fifteen year old Jewish boy, becomes mindful to the corruption of human nature caused by concentration camps, which eventually become death camps. The remembrance of the Holocaust is resurrected in Elie Wiesel’s Night, where Elie proves to lose faith in God by evoking his feelings about the corruption of humanity.
Eliezer is a young Jewish boy who studies Talmud and Kabbalah. The next day, his teacher Moishe the Beadle a group of deportees are on a train that get hijacked and everyone is taken captive. A very awful, tragic event occurs, the Gestapo (the group that hijacks the train) executes the deportees who were “used as targets” (6). Moishe survives the massacre but is very unstable and is driven to despair and cries “tears, like drop of wax” because the people do not believe him (7). There are now new laws to abide by, every Jew has to wear the yellow star and no longer has the right to perform certain acts.
The Holocaust was one of the most horrifying times in the world for Jews. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, he retells his terrifying experience and existence within a concentration camp that was nothing more than the destruction of human life. As a thirteen year old boy, Elie Wiesel becomes got trapped in a world of hell. Auschwitz, a death camp for all Jews, was controlled by the German soldiers. Within Auschwitz all freedom and humanity is denied.
The engineer’s role in the Vietnam War proved to be one of extreme importance. The engineer during this time, as in modern day military is one that is versatile and involved in every phase of the operation. Engineers are charged with a plethora of important tasks necessary to provide assured mobility, counter mobility and survivability for follow on friendly forces. During this time they performed these tasks with very few or no recourses at all. Regardless Engineers continued to fight along their infantry counterparts executing these tasks while developing better techniques and adapting to challenges that they face.