Night Symbolism In Elie Wiesel Night

Many asserted to be nothing more than the walking dead, devoid of a heart and a soul; a shell, or distortion, of their former selves for their real selves perished in this event. Wiesel was no exception to the companionship of this shadow of death and its permanent effects. Though his body continued to exist, the deaths around him had forever distorted him, robbing him of all which constitutes life. “Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, of all eternity, of the desire to live.” (Wiesel, intro)He witness death all round him, from his foremost night in the concentration camp. The shadow of death was a continuous companion to him in all his suffering, a companion which he frequently must face and rebuke. Though Wiesel

The narrative contains many last nights, the last dinner with one’s family, the last night in Sighet, the last night with his father, the last night of innocence, etc. Night also signifies a world without God. The worst suffering in the camps occurs at night. There were nights when the soups tasted like corpse. "The days were like nights, and the nights left the dregs of their darkness in our souls" (Wiesel, 100). Night is thus a metaphor for the way the soul was submerged in anguish and

Eliezer 's hellish experience is foreshadowed by Madame Shachter 's insane screaming on the train to Auschwitz. The trench of burning babies frightens Wiesel for life. The sight of the furnaces haunts Wiesel and his fellow prisoners all through. The symbol of fire in Night, however, is very ironic. No longer was fire used as a tool of the virtuous to punish the wicked. It has become a tool of the wicked to punish the good. Fire symbolizes not only death, but also the brutality of the Nazis. Fire is an example of hate because it acts as a symbol of Nazis’ power as the Nazis use it as a weapon. Many died because of fire in the Holocaust, when Nazis burned bodies into the crematoria. Fire can also be a representation of hatred as it makes the prisoners hate the camps even more. Even though the camps are already terrible, the sight and thought of fire makes the prisoners seem more vulnerable to death. This is shown in the book when Elie thought that he was going to die by the