Eliezer’s words in the middle of p.34, starting with, “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in the camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed,”(34) gave a new meaning to the word night. The story had gone more in depth on the horrors of the time, also it reinforces what I had said in my previous journal, that Night, the title, refers to the never ending darkness that surrounds Eliezer. In this part of the book Eliezer writes “Never shall I forget,”(34) followed by everything he had seen, every story he will remember, everything he has endured. The repetition of the “Never shall I forget,”(34) isolates every attribute he doesn’t want to forget, which almost honors it and then he moves on to the next. I think
Imagine yourself being beaten, starved, and worked to the core by german ss guards. In Elie Wiesel's memoir, Night the reader exposed to the life that a 14 year old jew had to go through when separated and put to work in a concentration camp. The text is full of Similes, Metaphors, Allusions, especially symbolism. The author uses the Cattle cars, The Star of David, and a Violin as the symbols in the book.
What is symbolism? It is the use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities. What I will be talking about in this essay is how symbolism was used in the book “Night” by Eliezer Wiesel. While there are many different versions of symbolism in the story I will only be focusing on three that I think are the best to talk about. Those three include the yellow stars the Jews had to wear, the spoon and knife Eliezer got from his father, and the title of the book.
Night Elie loses his faith throughout the book, but it was not always like that. Elie used to be very religious and wanted to learn as much as possible about his faith. “One evening, I told him how unhappy I was not to be able to find in sighet to teach me the Zohar, the Kabbalistic works, the secret of jewish mysticism” (Wiesel 5). Elie said to Moshe the Beadle. His father wasn’t supportive of his decision so he took things into his own hands.
The symbol is Night, the title of the book is also a symbol. Wiesel wanted to use this symbol to respond to what happened at night. Wiesel wanted to tell the reader what he had to do with his new headlines in the evening. Wiesel said the evening experience "made my life a long night, sealed seven times. " The author began to doubt that God could help him get rid of despair and pain, because he appeared in a long suffering and never saw the so-called God.
In brief, this story is labeled “night”, the author is Elie Wiesel. The tone of this story is intimate, and affectionate, it characterizes the extraordinary painful and personal experience of a single victim. The setting first takes place in Sighet, Transylvania, and then Elie is transported to several concentration camps such as Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Gleiwitz; he spends the time there in the years 1941-1945, during World War II. Eliezer struggled to maintain faith in a caring God; Silence; Inhumanity to other humans. The first symbolism is fire; Madame Schachter foreshadows death and horror “look, look at it, fire, a terrible fire, mercy, oh that fire”.
“I want to know how you keep holding on and believe again or how you never stop believing to begin with.” These words by Jessica Watson perfectly accentuate the battle that Elie Wiesel, the author of Night, struggles with throughout the novel. In the village of Sighet, Romania, a young Wiesel is enthralled by Jewish mysticism and believes the existence of an omnipotent God. One day, however, the Jewish people of Sighet are forced to live in supervised ghettos, and later brought to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Wiesel suffers with the physical torture of forced labor and hunger, as well as the mental and emotional torture of losing his family.
Symbolism a lot is shown in the novel and winner of the Nobel peace prize Night by Elie. Wiesel. In this book the author is Elie and he tells about his life in the holocaust with his family mostly his dad. His mom died his sister was not with him but after the years they found each other and his dad died with multiple ways the first one the water the second was a bonk to the head the last is fire. Anyways he escaped and he wrote this pretty good book I liked it and with that let’s get started with symbolism in Night.
The dark, mysterious and life changing setting the memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel contributes to the protagonist’s hardships between a spiritual character (God) and a minor character (his father). Eliezer, the protagonist, is faithful meaning that he respects and is influence by his God. “Oh God…have mercy on us” (20) as Eliezer “[prays] to his God…for strength,” (5) when arriving to the Ghettos. However, when arriving to the man-made settings such as the concentration camps, the relationship starts to diminish. The setting alters Eliezer’s judgment and now relies more on God’s faith to help the people at the camps.
in the book “night” Eliezer Weisel says, “night fell, night had fallen, and night was falling. Eliezer Weisel means that by night people were dying and passing away. This has a reference to death because when people die they close their eyes, and its night forever. There were people dying left and right. Some people believed that if they died they would be with God.
Eliezer is a young Jewish boy who studies Talmud and Kabbalah. The next day, his teacher Moishe the Beadle a group of deportees are on a train that get hijacked and everyone is taken captive. A very awful, tragic event occurs, the Gestapo (the group that hijacks the train) executes the deportees who were “used as targets” (6). Moishe survives the massacre but is very unstable and is driven to despair and cries “tears, like drop of wax” because the people do not believe him (7). There are now new laws to abide by, every Jew has to wear the yellow star and no longer has the right to perform certain acts.
The well-spoken Quintus Horatius Flaccus, more commonly known as Horace, once professed that hardship has the ability to provoke hidden skills that otherwise would have never displayed themselves. This philosophy is especially true in comparison to the life of Elie Wiesel, a courageous Holocaust survivor. Wiesel writes to all who haven't lived through the horror that is known as the Holocaust, in efforts of “transmitting the history of the disappearance” of those who were brutally and unrightfully killed. With a tone of gloom and mourning, Wiesel argues that if it wasn't for the fire that was ignited under him to relay the stories of those who were lost at Auschwitz, he would have never become the descriptive writer that he is. Many find that
“Despite the growing darkness, I could see my father turn pale.” (Pg. 12) “We would no longer have to look at all those hostile faces, endure those hate-filled stares. No more fear. No more anguish.”
The darkness of night can foment fears and apprehension of what is to come in the future. Ultimately, the fears of night can be used to symbolize death and the evil within man. In the novel Night, Elie Wiesel shares his difficult experiences at the concentration camp of Auschwitz during the Holocaust. His survivor testimony records the deaths of his family members, the abrupt loss of his innocence, and his confrontation with the absolute evil in man.
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.