Symbolism In Night By Elie Wiesel

In the 1956 memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel, he illustrates that witnessing human cruelty was his traumatizing memory of the Holocaust. Weisel supports his illustration through the use of symbolism, which demonstrates that witnessing human cruelty had more effect on him that anything else he will ever experience. He uses the flames that he saw as a symbol for the atrocities that he saw, because the flames themselves were the first example of cruelty that he ever witnessed. The author’s purpose is to explain why he will never forget “that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night”, so that the reader can understand the consequences of cruelty. Instead of simply stating that the cruelty he witnessed tore his dreams

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.

I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed me has never left me." Elie did not know who he was anymore, while at the camp he lost himself after his fathers death, therefore making him into a living corps. Wiesel who is the author of the book Night is claiming that it all went away after his fathers death, and the pain he felt could not be explained.

The second “kiss” from God Elie received was in the Rabbi’s words. When his life began to progressively become worse in the camps moments like the ones in the ghettos were not common; he began to become more despair. The book Night states, “He was the only rabbi whom nobody ever failed to address as "Rabbi" in Buna. He looked like one of those prophets of old, always in the midst of his people when they needed to be consoled. And, strangely, his words never provoked anyone.

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.

Elie Wiesel has a somber mood in the text ‘Night’. He does this by using imagery and symbolism, Wiesel does this so curiously, as not to plunge into a sad mood, but slowly eases the reader into the despair. The author describes a boy as “angel faced” that slowly moves towards a tragic ending. The angel is a power symbol throughout all cultures, and using that symbol to be placed onto a boy, and expressed through imagery creates a sense of dread and despair. Eliezer depicts a young boy to a “sad faced angel”, in the sense that the boy seems holy, and innocent, yet being in a labor camp, reinforces our idea that the Nazis have no respect for anything good or sacred in the world.

In the short novel, Night by Elie Wiesel, the author discusses an event of tremendous scarring effect to him and all those unfortunate to be caught in it’s scourge, The Holocaust. From the new age diaspora, death marches, cremation, and many other tyrannical actions from the German Reich that left all witnesses traumatized. These horrendous acts brought out a primal version of self preservation in the prisoners. The prisoners self preservation is displayed through their fight for rations of bread, their relentless labor to avoid the path to death that is tested by Dr. Mengele, leading the prisoners ultimately to the crematorium.

Death plays a bigger role in life than life itself. When people die, people cry, and while people cry, a clear moment of lucidity occurs. Death is what makes every moment worth living and is told through stories of books and movies with symbols both subtle and blunt. Night, for example, is an autobiographical novel recalling Eliezer’s experience through concentration camps while The Book Thief is a historical fiction film where Liesel is a bystander who participates in activities symbolizing war. History is intertwined death.

Traveling in darkness can be equivalent to going through an obstacle blind. Darkness is portrayed in different ways to reveal the dark secrets of the night. The details of the night are changed according to the specific events happening at the moment. Wiesel is describing the events of the Holocaust, and the gruesome days and nights he suffered at the concentration camps. The memories of the Holocaust left Wiesel distraught, but he learned various lessons from the experience.

These withered bodies had long forgotten the bitter taste of tears”(pg63 Wiesel). These words show how watching the deaths of fellow jews slowly ate away at his hope and tore his soul, as he knew that he could be next to die and that both him and the one being hung had “forgotten the bitter taste of tears”(pg63 Wiesel). These actions and words that were forced onto young Elie all change how he saw himself and his identity as a

In his memoir, Elie Wiesel writes, “Since my father's death, nothing mattered to me anymore” (113), showing that his reason for living had left him. He also states that he had “only one desire: to eat. [He] no longer thought of [his] father…” (113), which allows the reader to comprehend that with no reason to live, instinct had taken over. Somehow, he indifferently fought to survive, but it was very clear that his beliefs on life had changed

After the war he had become scarred forever. Wiesel then states, “Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes”(Wiesel 37). This scarring statement by Elie explains how he had

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.

As he became separated from his family, as he starved, and as he witnessed death, his belief and trust faded to the point where he was devoid of religion. By the end of the book, the reader can infer that Wiesel is a dynamic character based on his actions and beliefs. Throughout the novel, Elie’s actions began to change

Once again in his famous quote, Never Shall I, Elie talks about losing his will to live and specifically says “Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live. ”(Wiesel, 34). These quotes show that their will and their hope to live was taken straight from the beginning, when seeing those babies and seeing “the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.” ( Wiesel, 34). Elie in that moment, was completely changed and lost everything he had ever