Symbolism In Night By Elie Wiesel

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.

In his memoir Night, Elie Wiesel details that the Jews of his hometown Sighet Hungary, cling to an illusion of safety up until the moment of their arrival at Auschwitz. Mosche the Beadle provides the first evidence of potential danger; however the townspeople choose to ignore the warnings and instead condemn Mosche the Beadle as a lunatic. The Jews of Sighet choose to sacrifice the ”joy in[Mosche the Beadle’s] eyes”(7) to maintain a sense of security and isolation from the actions of the Hungarian police. Upon the seizure of power by a pro-nazi party the Jewish people merely view the change “in abstract”(9). They do not allow themselves to rationalize the event. German encroachment into Hungarian territory is not enough to shatter the

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.

Many immediately think to blame the Nazis, and only the Nazis for the Holocaust. This is not the case however, as many groups all share a portion of the blame. In Elie Wiesel's book, Night, it is evident that blame be passed to Elie’s God, the Jewish people themselves, and the non Jewish Europeans. Elie writes how his non Jewish neighbors watched, the Hungarian police force the Jews to march. When this was happening, the Jews were insulted, and beaten; it was clear the police had dark intentions.

In the story Night by Elie Wiesel, we follow Elie between 1941 and 1945 across Europe. Elie is an adolescent Jewish boy in tune with his faith. He would study Talmud by day and by night he would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple. In Sighet 1941, Elie was nearly thirteen when he met someone who everyone called Moishe the Beadle. Elie was so interested in learning more about his faith that he asked his father to find a master to help guide him in his studies of Kabbalah.

There are many words that represent night here are the two common definitions. Number one is a Dawn of a new day. Number two is an end of a day, but to Elie Wiesel night represents the darkness and fear that everyone went through during the holocaust. The first time Elie Wiesel went in to the concentration camp it was pitch black outside in the middle of the night.

In the beginning of Elie Wiesel’s Night Elie is very faithful to God and eager to learn about God, the Kabbalah, and mysticism. When asked why does he pray Elie answered, “Why did I live? Why did I breathe?(4) ” After one of God’s Followers and Elie’s leader, Moishe the Beadle gets back from the forests everything changed. News about the Holocaust starts to spread.

After losing World War One in 1918, the Germans were in an utter state of disillusionment and despair. Due to the Treaty of Versailles, they lost vast amounts of territory, became demilitarized, and had to pay millions in restitutions. A bleak time such as this was the perfect opportunity for fascist dictator, Adolf Hitler, to rise to power. Hitler managed to brainwash millions of vulnerable Germans into believing that the Jews were responsible for all the misfortune that had befallen them. Countless images and videos of Nazi propaganda circulated through Europe, depicting Jews as evil vermin that must be exterminated in order for the “master race” to reign supreme.

In “Night,” Wiesel utilizes the title to symbolize death, loss of faith, and darkness throughout the story. During the Holocaust, death was extremely common among the laborers. The smokestacks are used to smoke the laborers and burn them to death. The objective of the laborers is to survive until they reach the end of the journey. While marching, Wiesel’s friend Zalman is becoming extremely ill and is in the process of dying.

Tranae Williams Honors Freshman English Period 4 1/ 6/ 17 Night Essay “Night” Memoir by Elie Wiesel Significance of “Night” in Elie Wiesel’s Memoir Have you ever seen or heard of something tragic happening to someone you may or may not have known? You would feel bad for them but you would also think, “ I’m glad that wasn’t me.”, or “That could never happen to me or someone I know.” , right?

In this essay I am going to be writing and giving explanations about a few questions regarding the novel Night by Elie Wiesel. The questions are as followed, what does the word Night symbolize for Wiesel? Why do I think he entitled his book “Night”? And how does he describe the night time, and how does it compare to “day”? It symbolizes Wiesel horrible experience at the concentration camps.

While you are reading Elie Wiesel’s book, Night, you get to see the decline in Elie’s faith. In the beginning, Elie was very devout, he even went out and found himself a teacher on his own accord. Only when you get farther in the book do you get to see the decline. While Elie’s time in the Concentration camps goes on, his faith starts to dwindle. Nevertheless, Elie begins by finding himself a teacher.

At the end of the book Elie called himself a “corpse”. Why he said this because he went through a lot during the Holocaust, mentally, physically and emotionally. It all started when his family and him were placed in the ghetto. He was lucky enough to have his own house in the ghetto. He got to sleep in his own bed and live in his own house.

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.

Having bread with every meal as a side is a given, having a fire in the fireplace on cold winter nights is considered relaxing; however, bread and fire are not what they were to the men in the concentration camp as they are to us in 2016 in America. Bread was viewed as a meal, sometimes a prize. Fire was viewed as torture, not a way to keep warm. In the book, Night, by Elie Wiesel is a story about a young boy fighting with everything a young boy has to survive in the depths of the Holocaust.