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 second “kiss” from God Elie received was in the Rabbi’s words. When his life began to progressively become worse in the camps moments like the ones in the ghettos were not common; he began to become more despair. The book Night states, “He was the only rabbi whom nobody ever failed to address as "Rabbi" in Buna. He looked like one of those prophets of old, always in the midst of his people when they needed to be consoled. And, strangely, his words never provoked anyone.
In the beginning, Eliezer is a very strong follower of the Jewish Religion. In the early part of the book, before they are sent to the labor camps, Wiesel shows that he is strong with his faith when he says: “I was almost thirteen and deeply observant. By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the temple (Wiesel 3).” This quote comes from the first page of the book, where Wiesel is talking about his life before the chaos started, circa. 1941.
Elie Wiesel concluded his memoir, Night, by describing his feelings when he sees himself in the mirror for the first time since he left the ghetto. The purpose of this is to portray the state his body and mind is in. Elie describes himself as a corpse because his humanity had been stolen from him after so many years of suffering. Elie also was at the brink of starvation and death, which would have contributed to his corpse-like appearance. Elie went nearly an entire week without eating, and this is detrimental to his body.
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
Eliezer’s words in the middle of p.34, starting with, “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in the camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed,”(34) gave a new meaning to the word night. The story had gone more in depth on the horrors of the time, also it reinforces what I had said in my previous journal, that Night, the title, refers to the never ending darkness that surrounds Eliezer. In this part of the book Eliezer writes “Never shall I forget,”(34) followed by everything he had seen, every story he will remember, everything he has endured. The repetition of the “Never shall I forget,”(34) isolates every attribute he doesn’t want to forget, which almost honors it and then he moves on to the next.
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.
“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.
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.
For me, the greatest moment of sadness in the memoir is when Elie’s father dies. His death is gruesome and much suffering is shown throughout the last pages of the memoir. A dramatic shift is made in Elie’s perspective after this traumatic event. His father serves as his sole motivation to continue on in their cruel conditions and without him Elie is hopeless and alone. I feel Elie's father's death also symbolizes the unjustness of their situation.
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.
Elie Wiesel mentioned in his Novel "Night" that the prisoners came from a religious community, ¨The Jew of Sighet¨ (p. 3). Yom Kippur was a solemn Jew religious holiday where adults abstained from eating and drinking for long hours, except for sick people, children, pregnant women, or those who gave birth. Jews sought forgiveness of their sins by fasting. Even In a non-ordinary situation like the death camp, some Jews believed that they needed to fast more than any other day to clean their soul and seek forgiveness from God. They could not give away everything and became nonbelievers regardless of the horrific circumstances, especially for Elie, who learned and studied his religion at an early age, ¨ I studied Talmud, and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the
Eliezer Wiesel was a fifteen-year-old boy deported to the Nazi concentration camps in Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944-1945 along with the Jews from his hometown in Sighet. He demonstrates the personal struggles to maintain faith along with the struggle of silence, all of which are presented through the theme of Night by Elie Wiesel. His character develops a loss of innocence as he encounters inhumanity and the death of his father. Elie was a believer in God and learned the secrets of Jewish mysticism with the help of Moishe the Beadle before being sent out to the concentration camps. As he maintained his survival, he lost his faith in God.
After going through the holocaust many victims said that they suffered from PTSD, depression, and sleep disorders other had health problems due to the poor conditions of the camp. Night by Elie Wiesel is about the authors expirence of the holocaust as a teenage boy and how it slowly starts to break his pyche. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the author uses conflict, characterization, symbolism to enhance the theme that putting people in tortuous situations causes mentality and body to break. The conflict of misery Elie and others had to go through because of the Holocaust.
The setting of the story is Soledad, California in the early 20th Century. It takes place near the Salinas River, in the bunkhouse, in the barn and in crooks room. NEAR THE RIVER Near the Salinas river is where George reminds Lennie of their dream. This the location that the exposition of the story takes place in and where readers can understand George and Lennie's background.
