night by elie wiesel theme essay

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Night by Elie Wiesel Analysis

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by Elie Wiesel

Night themes.

Throughout the novel, Wiesel uses both literal and figurative silence to connote the lack of voice that Jews in the concentration camps have against their captors. One of the ways that silence permeates the book is the way in which God remains silent to the plight and violence against Jews. This is evident in several moments of the book, when one prisoner asks during the hanging of the silent angel “where god is.” When silence is broken, it is often to remind the reader of moments of humanity, such as when Juliek plays Beethoven in the middle of the night, reminding the rest of the prisoners that they are intelligent human beings, not silent animals.

Though probably somewhat an obvious theme given the title, night is constant theme that appears throughout the book, mostly to symbolize the darkness into which the world has plummeted. The first time that “night” is made apparent is when Wiesel describes the first night in the concentration camp, saying, “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.” An endless night symbolizes how Weisel and his fellow prisoners experienced time, in which routine violence governs their existences, and in which day offers no respite from darkness.

Human Nature

Perhaps one of the most salient themes is Wiesel’s insight into human nature, his descriptions posing the reader with the question of where animal instinct ends and civility begins. The breakdown of civility happens very early on, when people are first herded onto the cattle cars and some young couples begin to openly copulate with each other. As comfort is substituted for violence, people in Wiesel’s world are frequently described as beasts, and their survival instincts supersede their emotions and relational ties, even when it comes to family: the most tragic example is when a young man kills his own father for a piece of bread. By the end of the book, the reader understands that countless people lost more than their lives: they were also robbed of their humanity.

Related to both human nature and to loyalty, dignity is also a theme that permeates the book. Dignity also ebbs with time in the concentration camps, as routine things that gave meaning to live are stripped away. One of the key examples of this is when Akiba Drummer is sentenced to death and asks people to pray for him, to “say the kaddish.” Though people promise him that they will do so, they all forget to give him a dignified death, as people no longer value remembering each other. Dignity, of giving life meaning and making sense of one’s place in it, dissipates in favor of survival.

Faith in God

A huge theme throughout the piece is the evolving relationship that Wiesel has with God. The reader learns early on in the book that Eliezer is very devout and eager to learn more about his faith, but as time continues, so the stability of his faith is challenged. Interestingly, it is not that Wiesel ever stops believing in God in entirely, but more that he has a deep resentment of a god who has allowed for such evil to persist. Wiesel frequently identifies the reason for people’s death as their loss of a will to live; while Wiesel does indeed lose faith, he never does so completely, and the reader is led to believe that it is perhaps his emotion, even if negative, towards God, that is partly responsible for keeping him alive.

Tied to the theme of human nature and dignity, scenes and discussions of loyalty permeate the novel. Though Wiesel trusts his father, he at times does not appear to trust himself, and he often condemns himself for thinking his life in the concentration camp would be easier if he were alone and unburdened by his father. However, after witnessing instances of family betrayal in the concentration camp, Wiesel begs to God that he will never betray his father. Though Wiesel is true to his world, loyalty for others in the concentration camp breaks down as resources become scarcer and survival instincts replace loyal ties. Eliezer does not blame the prisoners for severing ties of loyalty: instead, he blames the Nazis for giving them no other choice.

While an obvious theme in the book would be freedom from the concentration camps, Wiesel also includes more subversive examples of freedom. As his father weakens, Wiesel feels burdened by having to care for his father. When his father is near death and taken to the crematory, Wiesel resents himself for, in some ways, feeling freed from his responsibility by his father’s death. Wiesel also pictures freedom as not only as defined as being liberated from the concentration camps, but in some cases as being freed from life itself. He describes life as burdensome, and the act of living it as a torture from which he sometimes wishes to be released.

Night Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Night is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Night, Chapter 2

From the text:

"There are eighty of you in the car," the German officer added. "If anyone goes missing, you will all be shot, like dogs."

What becomes elies main goal

In chapter three Elizer's main goal was for himself and his father to be selected for work and thus stay alive. They achieve this goal by lying to authorities and looking healthy enough to work.

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Study Guide for Night

Night study guide contains a biography of Elie Wiesel, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Night
• Night Summary
• Character List

Essays for Night

Night essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Night by Elie Wiesel.

• Silent Night
• The Motivation in Night
• The Gospel According to Mark and Night: Would St. Mark Call Night a 'Religious Book'?
• NIght and the Problem of Evil
• The Changing Nature of the Relationship Between Elie and His Father in Night

Lesson Plan for Night

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Night
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Night Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for Night

• Introduction
• Film and television
• Video games

By Elie Wiesel

'Night' by Elie is an important memoir of the Holocaust, depicting the horrors and truth of Germany's treatment of European Jews.

About the Book

Article written by Emma Baldwin

B.A. in English, B.F.A. in Fine Art, and B.A. in Art Histories from East Carolina University.

The novel is an important historical memoir published in 1960 . It was not until the trial and execution of Adolf Eichman in 1961, a year after the novel was finally published, that it came fully into the public spotlight.

Key Facts about Night

• Title:   Night
• When/where written : 1955-1958, South America and France
• Published: 1960
• Genre:  Memoir/Semi-fictional autobiography
• Point-of-View: First-person
• Setting: Europe during WWII
• Climax:  the death of Eliezer’s father, Shlomo
• Antagonist:  The SS soldiers and broader anti-Jewish laws and sentiment.

Elie Wiesel and  Night

Unlike some novels that are written at a distance,  Night  is tied up with the author’s life in an intimate, unignorable way. Wiesel has spoken about  Night  as his account of what happened in the concentration camps , one that is set back only slightly from reality through the creation of Eliezer and a few changes of events and circumstances. The novel is brutally honest, and clear. Wiesel spends its brief 100 pages depicting the lead up to the ghettos, trains, and camps, the loss of his family members, including his mother and sister, and then later his father as well, his suffering (and the suffering he observed) and finally his liberation.  Night  is incredibly personal , so much so that its language only gives the reader so much access to a time in Wiesel’s life that anyone would want to forget, but which he knew was too important to keep in his past. The novel was written several years after WWII, from the perspective of a thirty-year-old man, looking back on himself as a young adult. The climax of the novel connects intimately to one of the most important but often overlooked themes in  Night,  that of father/son relationships. Or, more specifically, sons and their treatment of their fathers. When Eliezer’s father, Shlomo, dies, and Eliezer experiences freedom from the burden of his father’s care, Wiesel represents the true breadth of the changes he’d undergone in the camps and the desperate state to which he and others were existing in.

Books Related to Night

The lasting impact of  night .

Today,  Night is commonly considered to be one of the best personal accounts of the Holocaust ever written . It is read in middle schools, high schools, and universities around the world, providing students with an insight into the horrors of the Second World War as they were experienced by someone close to their own age. It is one of the first ways that young people learn about the Holocaust.  Night  is also credited with helping to preserve the story of the Holocaust, something that Wiesel was incredibly passionate about. When speaking about the story of his life and the lives of millions of others who died, lost their families, homes, and identities during the war, he said that it would be “ not only dangerous but offensive ” to forget them.

Night Review ⭐

‘Night’ is a novel that transcends the average book review.

Night Themes and Analysis

‘Night’ is a short and incredibly impactful novel that uses direct language and avoids metaphors and other figures of speech to tell its story.

Night Quotes 💬

‘Night’ is filled with powerful and memorable quotes. There are a few of the most important. They depict Eliezer’s experience when newly imprisoned and after suffering for months at the hands of the SS.

Night Historical Context 📖

‘Night’ is Elie Wiesel’s best-known novel, one that encapsulates, in a semi-fictional way, his experiences in the Holocaust.

Night Character List 📖

The characters in ‘Night’ are described deeply and thoughtfully from the perspective of the novel’s narrator, Eliezer Wiesel.

Night Summary 📖

‘Night’ was published in 1960 and details the author’s experiences in the Holocaust along with his father, Shlomo. It follows the period from 1944 to 1945 when the camps were liberated.

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Night Themes

Themes are overarching ideas and beliefs that the writers express in their texts, including poetry, fiction , and plays.  Themes make the story appealing and persuasive and help readers to understand the hidden messages in a story or poem . Themes in Night , a masterpiece of Elie Wiesel , are diverse. They present question a man’s faith, show the effects of cruelty and hatred, along with the dark sides of human nature.  Some of the major themes in Night have been discussed below.

Themes in Night

Cruelty in the Holocaust

The Night demonstrates terribly cruel acts by the Nazis against the Jews, also known as The Holocaust. Elie’s family is in Sighet. They are ordered to move in segregated places and are forced to board a train to Auschwitz. Cruelty can be assessed from the fact that various people have already foreseen their deaths. For example, Madam Schachter starts screaming at the top of her voice and imagining that there is a fire. Moishe of Beadle also warns the people that they would be driven to their deaths, yet nobody believes him. Eliezer later remembers that people often took him as a lunatic. Elie, who is in his teens during these events, witnesses his family’s death and the horrors of the concentration camps. Eliezer questions his faith when he sees a young boy hanging on the gallows.

Humanity is absent from the main storyline. However, it can be considered as an overarching theme . Most of the characters treat each other with prejudice and inhumanity. Amidst this chaos, however, readers will find a few exceptions. For example, a veteran prisoner advises Eliezer that he should forget his father, or else he would lose his own life. He says, “You cannot think of others.” Eliezer feels that he had lost his humanity. He understands the circumstances and doesn’t condemn Rabbi’s son for leaving his father to die. Instead, he blames himself for his father’s death. Due to fear, Elie loses a sense of humanity and kindness when he does not give water to his father. He thinks by doing so, he’ll be killed by the Germans.

Faith in God is another major theme of the novel . When Eliezer in Sighet, his primary concern is the study of his religion, Judaism, and the purpose of life on this earth. He used to take an interest in religion and religious studies. Once he enters the concentration camp, he begins to doubt the existence of God. He often thinks that if such a great power existed, God wouldn’t allow such events, and also protect the chosen people. As the internal battle for the faith continues, he believes that “man is stronger, greater than God.” In fact, most inmates of the camp face the same dilemma about God’s existence.

Families were broken during the mayhem of transportation to the concentration camps to Auschwitz and other camps. Eliezer, for example, gets separated from his mother and sisters. During the camp, his relationship with his father turns cold. Because whenever Germans see such sympathies or efforts to support one another, they would kill them. Another such family relation is witnessed through the son of Rabi Eliahu, who gets separated from him. When he sees that he is unable to support his father, he leaves him and moves on. However, Eliezer prays to God that such a time should not come for him. However, Elie’s father dies, and Elie tries to suppress the loss.

Silence and suppression is another major theme of the novel. Eliezer observes that it is strange that despite warnings from Moishe the Beadle and Madam Sachachet, the Jews did not try to flee. There is a lack of voice even in Auschwitz and other camps. The most prominent silence is the silence of God. Though people cried out for Him, there was no answer. A prisoner asks it clearly “Where is God?” The play of Beethoven by Juliek amid death is a reminder that the people are alive and that they can speak. The rest is all silence.

Faith in God

Elie Wiesel had seen very religious people going to the death chambers with blank faces. He sees the Germans putting the little and innocent children to gas chambers or sending them to gallows. It is obvious that every person will question the very existence of God crying, ‘Where is God?’ Elie becomes numb and loses faith in God as he thinks that he may never believe in God. Therefore, the theme of faith in God also goes with the other thematic ideas like faith.

The theme of loyalty is closely tied to the theme of humanity. In fact, this loyalty sets human beings apart from other social creatures. Elie Wiesel proves his loyalty through his own relationships and the relationship of the son of the Rabbi. At first, he thinks that he is more loyal to his father and accompanies him on every stage of their lives. However, as he gives in to the fear of survival, he becomes numb and silent during the last stages of his father’s life. He doesn’t give him because of the fear of death, either of his own or of his father. Secondly, when Rabbi’s son, helplessly watches his father be crushed during the march, he prays that he does not face the same situation.

Insight into Human Nature

Understanding human nature, its unpredictability is another major theme of the novel. According to the author, human beings neither good nor bad. However, when they feel superior to their race and religion, they become cruel and kill people without any remorse. Even sometimes close and blood relatives ignore each other such as the son of Rabbi and Elie ignoring their fathers. Also, people stop believing in religion or the existence of God when they are desperate for safety.

Dignity or dignity of human life is another minor theme of the novel. However, the readers will only notice a loss of dignity such as Madam Schachter and Moise the Beadle. Under the Nazi regime, Jewish people were stripped of dignity and massacred in the most inhuman manner. The author’s story of survival is one of the million examples of people who lost their dignity before losing their lives.

Freedom from Oppression

Freedom from the oppression of the German occupation forces came after millions of Jews were slaughtered. During the marching or changing camps, Elie feels that his father has rather become a burden on him. Every prisoner wanted to be free from physical and mental torture in the concentration camps.

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The Story of ‘Night’

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By Rachel Donadio

• Jan. 20, 2008

This fall, Elie Wiesel’s “Night” was removed from the New York Times best-seller list, where it had spent an impressive 80 weeks after Oprah Winfrey picked it for her book club. The Times’s news survey department, which compiles the list, decided the Holocaust memoir wasn’t a new best seller but a classic like “Animal Farm” or “To Kill a Mockingbird,” which sell hundreds of thousands of copies a year largely through course adoptions. Indeed, since it appeared in 1960, “Night” has sold an estimated 10 million copies — three million of them since Winfrey chose the book in January 2006 (and traveled with Wiesel to Auschwitz).

But “Night” had taken a long route to the best-seller list. In the late 1950s, long before the advent of Holocaust memoirs and Holocaust studies, Wiesel’s account of his time at Auschwitz and Buchenwald was turned down by more than 15 publishers before the small firm Hill & Wang finally accepted it. How “Night” became an evergreen is more than a publishing phenomenon. It is also a case study in how a book helped created a genre, how a writer became an icon and how the Holocaust was absorbed into the American experience.

Raised in an Orthodox family in Sighet, Transylvania, Wiesel was liberated from Buchenwald at age 16. In unsentimental detail, “Night” recounts daily life in the camps — the never-ending hunger, the sadistic doctors who pulled gold teeth, the Kapos who beat fellow Jews. On his first day in the camps, Wiesel was separated forever from his mother and sister. At Auschwitz, he watched his father slowly succumb to dysentery before the SS beat him to within an inch of his life. Wiesel writes honestly about his guilty relief at his father’s death. In the camps, the formerly observant boy underwent a profound crisis of faith; “Night” was one of the first books to raise the question: where was God at Auschwitz?

Working as a journalist in his mid-20s, Wiesel wrote the first version of “Night” in Yiddish as “Und di Velt Hot Geshvign” (“And the World Remained Silent”) while on assignment in Brazil. But it wasn’t until he returned to Paris and met François Mauriac, a noted Catholic novelist and journalist, that “Night” took the shape we know today. Mauriac urged Wiesel to rewrite the book in French and promised to write a preface. Still, “it was rejected by the major publishers,” Wiesel recalled in a recent interview, “although it was brought to them by François Mauriac, the greatest, greatest writer and journalist in France, a Catholic, a Nobel Prize-winner with all the credentials.” Les Éditions de Minuit brought it out in 1958, but it sold poorly.

The American response was similarly tepid. Georges Borchardt, Wiesel’s longtime literary agent and himself a Holocaust survivor, sent the French manuscript to New York publishers in 1958 and 1959, to little effect. “Nobody really wanted to talk about the Holocaust in those days,” Borchardt said. “The Diary of Anne Frank,” published in the United States in 1952, had been a huge success, but it did not take readers into the horror of the camps. Although “Night” had sophisticated literary motifs and a quiet elegance, American publishers worried it was more a testimonial than a work of literature. “It is, as you say, a horrifying and extremely moving document, and I wish I could say this was something for Scribner’s,” an editor there wrote to Borchardt. “However, we have certain misgivings as to the size of the American market for what remains, despite Mauriac’s brilliant introduction, a document.” Kurt Wolff, the head of Pantheon, also turned “Night” down. Although it had qualities “not brought out in any other book,” Pantheon had “always refrained from doing books of this kind,” meaning books about the Holocaust, he wrote to Borchardt.

Finally, in 1959, Arthur Wang of Hill & Wang agreed to take on “Night.” The first reviews were positive. Gertrude Samuels, writing in the Book Review, called it a “slim volume of terrifying power.” Alfred Kazin, writing in The Reporter, said Wiesel’s account of his loss of faith had a “particular poignancy.” After the Kazin review, the book “got great reviews all over America, but it didn’t influence the sales,” Wiesel said.

The trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961 brought the Holocaust into the mainstream of American consciousness. Other survivors began writing their stories — but with higher visibility came the first glimmerings of criticism. In a roundup of Holocaust literature in Commentary in 1964, the critic A. Alvarez said “Night” was “beyond criticism” as a “human document,” but called it “a failure as a work of art.” Wiesel, he argued, had failed to “create a coherent artistic world out of one which was the deliberate negation of all values.”

By the early ’70s, the Holocaust had become a topic of study in universities, spurred in part by the rise of “ethnic studies” more generally and a surge of interest in Jewish history after Israel’s dramatic military victory in the Israeli-Arab wars of 1967 and 1973. Wiesel, who had moved to New York in the mid-’50s, began lecturing regularly at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan and teaching at the City University of New York. (Since 1976 he has taught at Boston University.)

Although his books were all reviewed respectfully, some critics questioned Wiesel’s role as a self-appointed witness. “His personal project has been to keep the wounds of Auschwitz open by repeatedly pouring the salt of new literary reconstructions upon them, and thus to prevent the collective Jewish memory — and his own — from quietly letting the wounds heal,” Leon Wieseltier, now the literary editor of The New Republic, wrote in Commentary in 1974. Reviewing Wiesel’s novel “The Oath,” about a pogrom, Wieseltier criticized Wiesel for “turning history into legend.” His characters were “archetypes of the varieties of Jewish pain,” Wieseltier wrote, so “what remains is ... a kind of elaborate superficiality which does justice neither to the author’s intentions nor to his terrible subject matter.”

In 1978, President Carter appointed Wiesel to a commission that eventually created the Holocaust Museum. In Wiesel’s mind, the “real breakthrough” that brought “Night” into wide view came in 1985, when he spoke out against President Reagan’s planned visit to the Bitburg military cemetery in Germany, where SS members were buried. While Reagan was awarding him a Congressional Gold Medal at the White House, Wiesel told him: “That place, Mr. President, is not your place. Your place is with the victims of the SS.” The next day, Wiesel’s words were on front pages worldwide. (Reagan still made the trip.)

Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize the following year. The Nobel committee called Wiesel “a messenger to mankind,” teaching “peace, atonement and human dignity.” Wiesel’s “commitment, which originated in the sufferings of the Jewish people, has been widened to embrace all repressed peoples and races.” By the late ’90s, “Night” was a standard high school and college text, selling around 400,000 copies a year.

Yet some critics have homed in on the very qualities that have helped “Night” find a broad readership. Some have criticized Wiesel for universalizing — and even Christianizing — Jewish suffering. In “The Holocaust in American Life” (1999), the historian Peter Novick cites crucifixion imagery in “Night” as evidence of the “un-Jewish” or Christian tenor to much Holocaust commemoration. Others have suggested Wiesel may have revised the book to appeal to non-Jewish readers. In a 1996 essay, Naomi Seidman, a Jewish studies professor at Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union, detected strong notes of vengeance in the Yiddish version. In the final scene, after the camp has been liberated, Wiesel writes of young men going into Weimar “to rape German girls.” But there’s no mention of rape in the subsequent French or English translations. Wiesel said his thinking had changed between versions. “It would have been a disgrace to reduce such an event to simple vengeance.”

To Lawrence L. Langer, an eminent scholar of Holocaust literature and a friend of Wiesel’s, what sets “Night” apart is a moral honesty that “helps undermine the sentimental responses to the Holocaust.” To Langer, “Night” remains an essential companion — or antidote — to “The Diary of Anne Frank.” That book, with its ringing declaration that “I still believe that people are really good at heart,” is “easy for teachers to teach,” Langer said, but “from the text you don’t know what happened when she died of typhus, half-starved at Bergen-Belsen.” Wiesel takes a similar view. “Where Anne Frank’s book ends,” he said, “mine begins.”

Rachel Donadio is a writer and editor at the Book

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Themes of “night” by elie wiesel.

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The following review example can serve as a guide for students trying to find inspiration when writing an assignment. 

What makes the story real? Not the reliability of facts or the fact that it’s based on real events. The main element is honesty. Integrity to share the happiest and the saddest moments, success and despair. The real story is raw to the bone, and the real author never hides behind the pen and paper.

This is the case for Elie Wiesel. The writer chooses memoir to go uncensored with his thoughts and memories about the most challenging moment in his life and the scariest event in history – war. 

Elie Wiesel’s “Night” is a powerful narrative that delves into the darkest chapters of human history through the eyes of a young Jewish boy, Eliezer. This semi-autobiographical novel, though woven with fictional elements, deeply reflects Wiesel’s harrowing experiences in Nazi concentration camps. “Night” is not just a story of survival but also a testament to the human spirit facing unimaginable horrors. In this article, we’ll explore the central themes that emerge from this profound work, rendered in simple text for clarity and understanding.

In this article, we’ll discover the main themes in “Night” and their meaning. 

Loss of Identity

The themes of “Night” by Elie Wiesel explore profound aspects of human nature and spirituality. Eliezer’s journey begins in his hometown, where he is deeply immersed in Jewish teachings and traditions. His profound identity as a young, devout Jew is starkly contrasted with the dehumanization he endures under the Nazi regime. The camps strip him of his name, his hair, and eventually, his faith, reducing him to a mere number. The transformation is so drastic that Eliezer, along with other prisoners, begins to see themselves as nothing more than animals, fighting over scraps of bread. This theme highlights not just a loss of personal identity but the obliteration of humanity itself.

“In the afternoon, they made us line up. Three prisoners brought a table and some medical instruments. We were told to roll up our left sleeves and file past the table. The three “veteran” prisoners, needles in hand, tattooed numbers on our left arms. I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name.”

Loss of identity, faith, the oppressive silence, and the ubiquity of suffering are not just historical reflections but also universal questions that resonate across time. Wiesel’s narrative serves as a stark reminder of the depths of darkness humanity can reach, and the resilience required to search for light amid such darkness.

Loss of Faith

The core of Eliezer’s being is his faith, which is deeply challenged by the atrocities he witnesses. At the beginning of the narrative, Eliezer declares, “I believed profoundly.”  

“I was twelve. I believed profoundly. During the day I studied the Talmud, and at night I ran to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple.”

In the concentration camps of Birkenau-Auschwitz, the horrors Eliezer witnesses begin to shake his faith in God. The crematoriums burn without end, devouring countless lives, including the most innocent of all—children. The cruelty he observes and endures is unimaginable, more brutal than one would ever treat animals. He struggles with the idea of a just God who would allow such atrocities.

“Night. No one prayed, so that the night would pass quickly. The stars were only sparks of the fire which devoured us. Should that fire die out one day, there would be nothing left in the sky but dead stars, dead eyes.”

Despite the terror surrounding them, Eliezer is struck by the sight of fellow Jews clinging to their faith, praying and seeking solace in their beliefs. This perseverance in the face of such evil puzzles him; it seems to demonstrate a strength and a capacity for forgiveness that surpasses the deity they worship.

As time goes on, death becomes a constant companion in the camps, and despair takes root. Eliezer, along with others, loses any remaining belief in a benevolent God. This sentiment is shared by others, like Akiba Drumer and a rabbi Eliezer speaks with, who conclude that a God cannot exist in a world that allows the Holocaust to happen.

“Behind me, I heard the same man asking: “Where is God now?” And I heard a voice within me answer him: “Where is He? Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows. . . . “”

Eliezer’s faith is irreparably damaged during an execution at Buna, where a young boy is hanged before the eyes of the prisoners. A voice from the crowd pierces the air with the question, “ Where is God now? ” In his heart, Eliezer believes that if God exists, He is present in the suffering of the boy on the gallows, who dies a slow, agonizing death while the prisoners are forced to witness.

Silence permeates “Night,” symbolizing both the incomprehensible absence of God and the muted response of the world to the Holocaust. Eliezer grapples with God’s silence, unable to reconcile it with the loving deity he was raised to worship. 

This theme is painfully illustrated when Eliezer fails to answer his dying father’s call, a silence born of utter despair and hopelessness. Wiesel uses this motif to challenge the reader, posing difficult questions about divine and human inaction in the face of atrocity.

Fathers and Sons

Eliezer’s story begins with him witnessing his father cry for the first time when they are forced to leave their home. This is significant because it shows a crack in the strong figure his father has always been. The memoir “Night” delves into the breakdown of father-son bonds under the extreme conditions of the Holocaust. Central to this theme is the changing relationship between Eliezer and his father, which also reflects on the relationships between other fathers and sons in the concentration camps.

Before the Holocaust, Eliezer’s father is a respected figure both in the community and at home. Their relationship is based on tradition, where honoring one’s parents is a key commandment, especially in Jewish families like theirs. But once Eliezer and his father are separated from the rest of their family at Birkenau, they only have each other. As his father becomes weaker, the roles they once played change. Eliezer finds himself in the position of being the protector, rather than the one protected.

Life in the camps tests their relationship in many ways. Eliezer often feels guilty for being mad at his father when he can’t defend himself or keep up with the march. Despite his weakening state, his father still tries to look after Eliezer by giving him tools for survival and even saving him from being strangled on the train. But there’s only so much they can do to shield one another from suffering. As the conditions worsen and the weaker prisoners start dying, fathers start to be seen as burdens. Sons struggle with guilt over their survival instincts and their inability to save their fathers. Eliezer witnesses the extreme of this when a young man abandons his exhausted father, a rabbi, during a death march, and again on a train when a son kills his father for food.

These harsh realities force Eliezer to confront his feelings for his father. However, by the end of “Night,” these feelings become irrelevant. His father falls ill, no one is willing to provide medical help, and Eliezer is powerless to protect him or to stop others from causing harm. The roles and relationships that once defined them are irreversibly altered.

“Oh, to strangle the doctor and the others! To burn the whole world! My father’s murderers! But the cry stayed in my throat.”

Final thoughts

Elie Wiesel’s “Night” shares a heart-wrenching story of how the Holocaust tore apart people’s lives and faith. It shows the painful change in a son’s duty to his father and the struggle to keep hope alive. The book makes us think deeply about the harsh truths of survival and loss during one of history’s darkest times.

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The Book “Night” by Elie Wiesel Essay (Book Review)

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“Night” is a heart-wrenching story of a young man’s journey, the author as a prisoner in Auschwitz and Buchenwald during the holocaust. Elie Wiesel provides a first-hand account of the horrors he witnessed and experienced during his time in the concentration camps. He describes the events that took place so readers can visualize them and read the intended emotion. Throughout the novel, Elie Wiesel witnesses his family’s death, his fellow prisoners’ degradation, and his own physical and psychological decline. Although “Night” is a work of fiction, it is based on Wiesel’s real-life experiences and serves as a powerful testimony to the horrors of the holocaust. The novel is incredibly moving and provides a valuable perspective on one of the darkest periods in human history.

Wiesel perfectly narrates how people lose their humanity and innocence due to torture experienced during the holocaust. For instance, the gradual dehumanization of the prisoners was mean and unfair to any human being. Wiesel writes about how the slaves are treated like animals and slowly stripped of their humanity. The inmates were forced to act in a given manner to survive. For example, Wiesel is forced to watch as his father is beaten and killed, and he is also forced to kill a man himself, taking away his innocence. This experience reflects how characters can no longer feel love or compassion for others. The words “Twenty corpses were thrown from our wagon. Then the train resumed its journey, leaving in its wake, in a snowy field in Poland, hundreds of naked orphans without a tomb” (Wiesel 99) depict the torture and lack of concern the Nazis had for the people.

Not even children were spared the horrible times but were instead used as bait. “A truck drew close and unloaded its hold: small children. Babies! Yes, I did see this, with my e y e s … children thrown into the flames” (Wiesel 32). Following this quote, Wiesel demonstrates the mercilessness among Nazi soldiers, who could not even spare a harmless creature like a baby. In another instance, Wiesel mentioned the thought of losing his mind when he saw babies thrown into super-heated ditches. He told himself that the kids must be dead as a way to try and stay sane in light of the brutal acts committed before them. The Nazis loudly laughed at their actions as if to enjoy and mock the pain of others, which made the whole experience even harder.

Hope is one of the most remarkable points of strength that gets people tough through the most challenging periods. Wiesel captured the hope in Jews that made them survive another day despite their horrifying experiences. People constantly encouraged each other throughout the holocaust, which gave them the will to continue with life. In several instances, Wiesel reports, “To the last moment, people clung to hope” (Wiesel 15), and “We mustn’t give up hope, even now as the sword hangs over our heads” (Wiesel 31), illustrating how the people stood with each other in hard times.

The irony was a striking literary term employed by Wiesel in his report about the holocaust. For instance, Wiesel describes how he and his fellow Jews were excited to be taken by the Nazis, thinking they would be given a better life. However, the reality was that they were taken to concentration camps, where they were treated horribly. An example of irony in the book is when Wiesel describes how the Nazis forced the Jews to wear yellow stars (Wiesel 11). The Jews were told that the stars would protect them and make them feel special. However, in reality, the stars made the Jews easy targets for abuse and violence.

There was also foreshadowing in Wiesel’s analysis of the events. For instance, Jews were forced to give up their belongings and were told to pack lightly for the trip. This foreshadows that they would be taken to concentration camps where they would be forced to live in cramped and uncomfortable conditions. Moreover, symbolism is also highly employed in the text. For example, the night sky is used to symbolize the darkness and cruelty of the holocaust. Another symbol in the book is the character of Moishe the Beadle, who represents the importance of remembering the holocaust and bearing witness to what happened (Wiesel 28). The Jews also referred to the Star of David because it stood for resilience and hope among them. Despite the darkness and cruelty of the Holocaust, the Jewish people continued to believe in their faith and hope that they would one day be free.

In conclusion, the book “Night” is a harrowing account of the author’s experiences as a prisoner in Auschwitz and Buchenwald during the holocaust. The novel is incredibly moving and provides a valuable perspective on one of the darkest periods in human history. The book is a powerful testimony to the horrors of the holocaust and how people can lose their humanity and innocence. It is essential to bear witness to things that occurred in the past, so that future generations can learn from them and understand some current events from a historical point of view.

Wiesel, Elie. Night: Elie Wiesel . Spark Publishing, 2014, pp 1-120., Web.

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Elie Wiesel

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At the start of the memoir, it's 1941 and Eliezer is a twelve-year-old Jewish boy in the Hungarian town of Sighet. He's deeply religious and spends much of his time studying the Torah (the Bible) and the Talmud and praying. His parents and sisters run a shop in the town, and his father is highly respected in the Jewish community. Eliezer begins to study the Cabbala, the book of Jewish mysticism, with an immigrant named Moché the Beadle . When the Hungarian police deport all of the foreign Jews, Moché is sent away, but he returns with a terrible and fantastic tale: the Gestapo stopped the train and slaughtered the deported Jews. Moché escaped with a leg wound and has come to warn the Jews of Sighet to leave. The Jews of the town can't believe what Moché is saying, and think he's gone mad.

The war continues through 1943. In 1944, the Jews of Sighet still don't really believe Hitler intends to exterminate them. Eliezer wants his father to relocate the family to Palestine, but his father says he's too old to start again. The Fascists come to power in Hungary and German soldiers enter the country. Before long, German officers are living in Sighet and then arresting the Jewish leaders of the town. Soon, the Hungarian police round the Jews up into two ghettoes. Next, they force the Jews like cattle onto trains headed to an unknown destination.

The Jews travel on the train for several days, during which time one Jewish woman goes mad and screams about fire. The train arrives at Birkenau, the gateway to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where the passengers can see chimneys belching fire and can smell burned flesh. The women are immediately separated from the men, and Eliezer never sees his mother or his younger sister again (they are immediately sent to the gas chamber). A Nazi SS doctor separates those who are going to be killed immediately from those who will work. Eliezer sticks close to his father. That first night in the camp, he witnesses babies and children thrown into a great fire in a burning ditch. Eliezer's faith in a just God is shattered.

More separations occur, but Eliezer and his father stay together. All the prisoners are tattooed with a number, and this becomes their identity. They are told they must work or they will be burned in the crematoria. They spend three weeks at Auschwitz before marching to another concentration camp, Buna. Here, Eliezer and his father spend their days working in an electrical equipment warehouse. Their Kapo (the prisoner conscripted to wield power over other prisoners) occasionally goes berserk and beats people, including Eliezer and his father. The SS doctor appears again to weed out another batch of people for the furnaces. Eliezer has a scare when his father is chosen, but his father manages to convince someone that he can still work. While at Buna, Eliezer continues to rebel against the idea of a just God. After being forced to witness the slow hanging death of a child, he ceases to believe in God, altogether.

With the front lines of the war getting closer, the prisoners at Buna are evacuated on a long, nightmare death march to a camp called Gleiwitz. People die continuously along the way as the SS forces them to run for hours and hours in the snow, shooting people who fall behind. Upon arriving at Buna, a young Jewish violinist plays pieces of a Beethoven concerto. By morning the violinist has died. The survivors of the march are kept without food and water for several days, more are separated from the rest to be killed, and the remaining prisoners are crammed onto trains in open-roofed cattle cars. The train ride is endless. The Jews have nothing to eat but snow, and people die left and right. When they pass through a German town, some German workers toss scraps of bread in the car to watch the starving prisoners fight to the death. More people lie down in the snow and die when the train at last arrives at another concentration camp: Buchenwald. Eliezer's father grows feverish, contracts dysentery, and begins to waste away. Doctors won't help, the camp doesn't want to waste food on sick people, and Eliezer can only offer his own rations to his father, who is soon delirious. The night before Eliezer's father passes away, an SS officer beats the dying man on the head. Eliezer is unable to cry or mourn. He spends another two and a half months at Buchenwald in a daze before the Nazis begin another prisoner evacuation. This time there is an armed uprising among the prisoners and the remaining SS flee. American tanks arrive, followed by food, although Eliezer gets food poisoning and spends two weeks in the hospital, near death. When he looks at his face in the mirror for the first time since he left the village of Sighet, he sees a vision he will never forget: the face of a corpse.