The book Night is written by Elie Wiesel. For my history project I had to find a recurring word, or symbol from the novel Night. The word death is used frequently throughout the book. During World War II, Elie, his family, and other jews from the area, were deported to German concentration camps, known as Aushwitz and Buchenwald. In this true novel, Elie takes you through his journey of how horrible concentration camps are and how he survived
Of course, night is used literally in the book to mean a time of day. It is also used as a motif in the book to symbolize death, the Jews gradual loss of faith, and suffering. As an image, it comes up repeatedly. Many things happen at night in the book. The Jews of Sighet are loaded into the cattle carts; Eliezer arrives at Auschwitz; they are forced to march through the night; they're stacked on top of each other and suffocate each other, and Eliezer’s father dies during the night.
The book Night by Elie Wiesel is an incredibly written memoir about his struggle through the Holocaust. I have chosen to look at the motifs in this memoir. A motif is symbol or image that is constantly referred to in the text. In this paper we will focus on the motif of night and it’s significance to the story telling.
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.
In the memoir Night, the author, Elie Wiesel, tells his story about his life during the Holocaust. He talks about his experience in the concentration camps and the traumatic events that occurred. This is all to show a few different meanings. Firstly, the title itself represents the darkness and anguish the Jews experienced. One way Wiesel expresses this meaning is through figurative language, for example, “The days resembled the nights, and the nights left in our souls the dregs of their darkness (Wiesel 94).”
Night Essay “Night” is a term used often, usually to express a time to relax and rejuvenate, but in this memoir it takes on a completely different meaning. In Elie Wiesel’s Night, the importance of the word “night” uncovers the most terrifying memories of most of the events that took place in the holocaust. Eithout the lack of natural neccesities such as food, water, and proper shelter, the journey from one camp to the next for the jews is going to take a toll on their bodies. As camps were starting to evacuate becuause of the red army taking on multiple victories, a mojortiy of the people were left for dead. “remained lying on the floor for days and nights, one on top of the other, never uttering a word.
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.
Probably one of the most prominent figures in the book besides Elie was his father, Schlomo Wiesel. Throughout the book, he desperately tries to protect his family no matter the cost and especially Elie — since they were together most of the time — in the concentration camps. In the book, there are multiple instances where Elie’s father looks out for his son by giving him his “knife and spoon” and also giving him his “rations of bread.” Other times he gives advice and encouragement to his son; near the end of the book, Elie almost sleeps to his death but his father wakes him up in time saying “‘Don’t let yourself be overcome by sleep Eliezer. It’s dangerous to fall asleep in the snow.
The symbol I chose was God for Eli because he does talk about God quite often during his days in the holocaust from the book Night. This picture I choose is a pile of dead bodies to represent death for the symbol God. The reason I choose this picture because Eli had witnessed a lot of cruel things at a young age. He had worshipped God so much and had trust and love for him.
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
Night Analysis “The three ‘veterans’ with needles in their hands, engraved a number on our left arms. I became A-7713. After that I had no other name (31).” The book Night, by Elie Wiesel is about the author’s life during the Holocaust. At the age of fifteen, Elie’s normal life crashed as he was taken into the world of concentration camps.
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.
In Ray Bradbury’s short story “The Night”, you can find symbolism and imagery throughout the story; however the symbolism was subconsciously done. Bradbury’s short story “The Night” has symbolism, such as the darkness representing not knowing what going to happen next, death and the fear of death; however the imagery in the short story is what the reader perceive as symbolism . When asked “Do you consciously, intentionally plan and place symbolism in your writing” Bradbury responded by saying “I never consciously place symbolism in my writing”, but even so many tries to “find beasties and bedbugs in my ink-splotches” instead of trying to look at “story...humanity, character analysis, truth on other levels…” The ravine in the short story
At times, it appears unviable for one’s life to transform overnight in just a few hours. However, this is something various individuals experienced in soul and flesh as they were impinged by those atrocious memoirs of the Holocaust. In addition, the symbolism portrayed throughout the novel Night, written by Elie Wiesel, presents an effective fathoming of the feelings and thoughts of what it’s like to undergo such an unethical circumstance. For instance, nighttime plays a symbolic figure throughout the progression of the story as its used to symbolize death, darkness of the soul,
(p. 65) Night is used as metaphor for darkness and death in the book “Night”. The first quote tells us that the experience was so bad in the camp that he can’t forget it. Because he can’t forget what has happened he has become a shadow for his life that makes him remember the terrible experience, which sealed his life. His life is sealed, because of the bad experiences that he had gone through.
