Themes Of Night By Elie Wiesel

The horrid events in chapters six and seven demonstrated many of the major themes in the story while simultaneously evoking emotional reactions from the readers. These two chapters are centered around the journey of the Nazi prisoners from Buna to Buchenwald. One of the major events that occurred during the first leg of the journey was a 20 kilometer run towards their destination. Death ran rampant during this run. Elie witnessed the last moments of a young boy named Zalman. However, Elie tells the reader that “I soon forgot about him. I began to think of myself again.”(86). This event shows how accustomed Elie has gotten with death after experiencing thousands of murders in the camp, as well as showing how the camps were forcing people to

When having reached the destination, Elie describes the environment, “Death, which was settling in all around me, silently, gently. It would seize upon a sleeping person, steal into him and devour him bit by bit.” (89) In the quote Elie personifies death by painting a picture of a predator-like organism that attaches onto an unsuspecting sleeping person and then slowly eating them away until they die, when in reality death overcomes the Jews in their sleep. Another selection also took place and Elie’s father was selected only escaping after Elie “ran after him” (96) creating a confusion. This is important because it means that Elie’s father is no longer fit for work in the camps, and he may be killed if selected and found again. After this came the second length of the journey, in a bitterly cold cattle car. At one point in the journey, Elie’s dad sleeps, but he looks dead, so the gravediggers want to take his body and throw it out. Elie intervenes and is able to wake his dad up. This is important because it shows how Elie cared about his dad, conveying the theme of the importance of

These chapters talk about the way that people change when they are treated like animals, and about the savagery that people can take part in. Dehumanization was heavily seen in the last parts when people were driven to kill over a small piece of bread. Family was also an important part in the chapters whether it be of its importance, as seen with Elie and his father, or the break between family bonds shown when Rabbi Eliahu was abandoned by his son. Human immorality was seen in the cruelty of the Germans, treating the Jews like cattle and killing over 90% of the Jews that were being transported. Through these events, evoked emotions, and themes, the past two chapters of Night tells us a fraction of the tragedy Elie had to live