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People always say that bad things happen at night. I believe Elie Wiesel called his Holocaust memoir, Night because Wiesel uses foreshadowing and symbolization of bad things with the name Night. Throughout the book, we see how Wiesel mentions the physical and symbolic darkness of night, right before something terrible happens. For example, in chapter 7 pgs 98-103, when Night symbolization as it relates to the author’s experiences. This happens when the car stops in a field and SS soldiers shout at the people in the cars to throw out their dead.
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.
Elie Wiesel has a somber mood in the text ‘Night’. He does this by using imagery and symbolism, Wiesel does this so curiously, as not to plunge into a sad mood, but slowly eases the reader into the despair. The author describes a boy as “angel faced” that slowly moves towards a tragic ending. The angel is a power symbol throughout all cultures, and using that symbol to be placed onto a boy, and expressed through imagery creates a sense of dread and despair. Eliezer depicts a young boy to a “sad faced angel”, in the sense that the boy seems holy, and innocent, yet being in a labor camp, reinforces our idea that the Nazis have no respect for anything good or sacred in the world.
Imagine yourself being beaten, starved, and worked to the core by german ss guards. In Elie Wiesel's memoir, Night the reader exposed to the life that a 14 year old jew had to go through when separated and put to work in a concentration camp. The text is full of Similes, Metaphors, Allusions, especially symbolism. The author uses the Cattle cars, The Star of David, and a Violin as the symbols in the book.
With the rural population numbering more than urban, some may think that Appalachia’s residents are isolationists. This is not the case. In reality, it is the land that is isolated, not the people. There is a distinct difference between the two. Also, slave violence was an issue in any territory where it was legal to own slaves.
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.
The True Darkness of Night As much as the universe longs to postpone the haunting night, it inevitably approaches with the sharp knife of terror. Night follows day and day follows night in an unalterable continuous pattern. In the book Night, Elie Wiesel portrayed the message of darkness and terror caused by one person to another by using the symbol of night. Each night seems to spark a new beginning for Elie as he travels through different situations that invoke him towards the simulation of death.
In his memoir Night, Elie Wiesel details that the Jews of his hometown Sighet Hungary, cling to an illusion of safety up until the moment of their arrival at Auschwitz. Mosche the Beadle provides the first evidence of potential danger; however the townspeople choose to ignore the warnings and instead condemn Mosche the Beadle as a lunatic. The Jews of Sighet choose to sacrifice the ”joy in[Mosche the Beadle’s] eyes”(7) to maintain a sense of security and isolation from the actions of the Hungarian police. Upon the seizure of power by a pro-nazi party the Jewish people merely view the change “in abstract”(9). They do not allow themselves to rationalize the event. German encroachment into Hungarian territory is not enough to shatter the
The Symbolism and Use of the Word “Night” in Elie Wiesel’s Memoir In “Night,” a memoir by Elie Wiesel, the author uses the word “night” symbolism to portray and further emphasize the horrors that occur during the night. Elie Wiesel’s memoir, “Night,” shows the atrocities of the Holocaust and the impact it had on humanity. In this memoir, Wiesel uses the word "night" as a motif to highlight the loss of faith and humanity experienced by those who lived through the Holocaust. As Wiesel describes his experiences, his words emphasize the darkness and horror of the Holocaust.
During the Holocaust, food played a significant part. It was important for the way people took care of themselves and survived. The reason being was that in the concentration camps it was every man for himself and they sought food to stay healthy. Elie Wiesel had managed to keep himself strong and healthy for his father.
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
The motif that I chose from the book Night, by Elie Wiesel is “night”. This motif represents both physical and spiritual death, but it also represents death and despair. When Elie uses this word, it symbolizes when something in his life simply goes away, or when he enters a phase of darkness. For example, when Elie states, “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed”, he is saying that the night that he entered the concentration camp, it of course changed his life forever, but it also was the night that he stopped trusting in God so much because he didn’t understand how God could be doing such horrible things to such innocent people. Now
Symbolism can be seen through both good and bad alike. Though when it comes to instances that have to do with the holocaust, it’s almost always, if not always, a painful connotation. The holocaust is one of if not the the largest instance of mass genocide in recorded history. Leaving each Jew that survived with a different story to tell. While their story’s remained different, the pain that they each experienced was not.
During World War II, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi controlled concentration camps abducted millions of European Jews and were responsible for the deaths of over 6 million people. For those who survived, they were left with extreme physical and emotional scars that would never fade. In Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, he reveals the heartbreaking backstory of the Holocaust and the traumatizing effects it had on him, which left him comparing himself to a corpse after liberation. Elie Wiesel’s mirror reflection is that of a corpse at the end of his memoir, Night, because of the immense loss he experiences during the Holocaust.
