Elie Wiesel's "Night"

Book Review # 100489

Holocaust Studies
Literature > European (other)

A look at the deconstruction of Elie Wiesel in his autobiographical book "Night".

1,383 words () | 0 sources | 2007 United States

Paper Summary:

"Night", by Elie Wiesel, is an autobiographical book about the survival of a young Jew, Wiesel himself, in the utmost degradation of the human soul. This paper dicusses how, in Weisel's book, "Night", the images of night and fire, the themes of brutality against children, the loss of spiritual faith, the idea of death, the inversion of the father-son relationship between the protagonist and his father, Shlomo Wiesel, all substantiate the degradation of the human soul from civilization and faith to savagery and loss in faith.

From the Paper:

"The recurring image of night itself and fire are significant. Night falls at the most crucial parts of the book: when Shlomo Wiesel, Elie Wiesel's father first announces the news of the "transports" (13), when Eliezer first observes the shocking vision of death by burning in the crematorium, and when the march from Buna commences. There is a gradual increase in the darkness especially before, during, and after the march: "an even darker night was waiting for us on the other side." (84) Eliezer's pain increases with the darkness and is finally numbed when the night becomes pitch-black. Once the procession reaches the barracks in Gleiwitz, the prevalence of death increases as the night grows longer to the point where "the days resembled the nights and the nights left in [our] souls the dregs of their darkness." (100) "