Theme Of Night By Elie Wiesel

Marked by the dehumanizing and horrific genocide of the Jewish people, the Holocaust was a significant conflict that fueled the militant period of the twentieth century. As the spearhead of the Nazi Party of Germany from 1934 to 1945, Adolf Hitler sponsored the brutal persecution and genocide of around six million Jewish individuals, along with many other casualties. Subjugated to the tyranny of the concentration and labor camps where they were stripped of their identity and liberty, the individuals that survived the Holocaust will carry the burden of their traumatic memories through their lifetime. In his memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel explores his harrowing experiences imprisoned in multiple concentration camps as a teenager during the Holocaust.

In this light, Wiesel’s novel is significant to high school canon by exposing students to both the important history of the Holocaust as well as the inhumanity that is presented in the treatment of the Jewish people by the extremist Nazi Germany. Aside from human nature, Night also delves into many other important themes, such as the struggle to remain religious in times of tribulation as well as the inability to act during times of responsibility. In one instance of the novel, the narrator Eliezer emphasizes the traumatic impact of the events he witnesses in the concentration camp when he says, “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night [...] the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live [...] that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to

As a memoir, not only does Wiesel’s work offer insight into the history encompassing the Holocaust, but it does so through an extremely heart-rending plot seen through Eliezer’s perspective. At the end of Night, Wiesel describes the Holocaust’s effect on his protagonist when he writes, “One day I was able to get up [...] I wanted to see myself in the mirror [...] I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me” (115). This parting line reminds the audience that the Holocaust is a real and significant event, that other humans had to experience for themselves. Through Eliezer’s point of view, the audience sees his loss in humanity as he is constantly exposed to death, even losing his father to this tragedy. If banned by administration, the high school canon would lose an extremely valuable novel that combines a well-written and tragic novel that brings to light an example of the many injustices faced by the Jewish people during World War II. Therefore, Elie Wiesel’s Night is a work that acknowledges and honors the significance of the Holocaust in relation to humanity, passing on