Night by Elie Wiesel
Though it is called a novel, Night (Wiesel 1982) is actually a memoir about Wiesel's experiences as a young, devout Jewish boy who is forced by World War II Nazis into a concentration camp, along with his family. The main character, Eliezer, is actually Wiesel, and through his descriptions and thoughts about his life before, during and after the concentration camps, Wiesel illustrates ways that people may recognize evil and fight it by: listening to warnings, taking a side and acting; paying attention to evil as it tightens its grip on us; acting against the oppressor rather than the oppressed; remembering the terrible results of evil so we can fight it in the future.
Idea(s) Developed by Wiesel about Circumstances Compelling Individuals to Respond
One idea that Wiesel develops is the idea that we should listen to people who have experienced evil and warn us about it, then take a side and act. At the beginning of Night, Eliezer, the main character and narrator of the book, is a devout Jewish 12-year-old boy, the 3rd of 4 children whose parents ran a shop in Sighet, Transylvania (Wiesel 1982, 1-2). Eliezer's "place was at school" (Wiesel 1982, 2) and his "cultured, rather unsentimental" father tries to find...
Night by Elie Wiesel was first published in English in 1960 and gave the most chilling and most faithful account of his experiences during the Holocaust. We have heard a lot about concentration camps and how Jews were made to suffer simply because of their religion, however this book gives us something deeper to think about. The book studies the Holocaust experience in the light of Jewish beliefs and the
This apathetic sentiment even envelops the narrator, as the following quotation demonstrates by showing that Eliezer knew that "the child was still alive when I passed him." Despite this fact, the narrator does nothing to help the child due to his extreme apathy. However, the narrator's apathy is proven most effectively by his silent answer to the question as to God's presence, which the subsequent quotation suggests. "Where is
How the German army used this deception can be best quoted from Night when the Pole in charge of the block where Eliezer was kept with other men said, "Comrades, you are now in the concentration camp Auschwitz. Ahead of you lies a long road paved with suffering. Do not lose hope. You have already eluded the worst danger: the selection. Therefore, muster your strength and keep your faith.
Night," by Elie Wiesel, "The Plague," by Albert Camus, and the "I Have a Dream" speech, by Martin Luther King, Jr. Specifically, it will discuss the views of human nature held by Wiesel, Camus, and King. Are people basically good or bad? Who is more optimistic or pessimistic? Who is right? Martin Luther King, Jr. is the optimist of these three writers, but each author makes the reader think,
Night by Elie Wiesel [...] main ideas in the book and thesis of the Author, and then provide an evaluation of the book. Wiesel's book "Night" is a moving and poignant account of this time spent in German concentration camps during World War II. He chronicles how he managed to survive while so many other Jews perished, and what it meant to his family and his life. The extermination
Elie Weisel's Night: Contrasting Elie And His Father In Elie Weisel's autobiographical book Night (1960), an account of how Elie and his entire family were taken by the Nazis to concentration camps during World War II, Elie emerges as a much different person from his father. Elie's father is a leader of his community before the Holocaust, and as such, he often seems more concerned about his community than even his
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