In Night, Elie Wiesel

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In Night, Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel’s “Night” is a short tale describing the most painful time in human history (1941-1945). In it, Elie raises questions and tries to answer them while internally focusing on the current tribulations. Among the concerns discussed are God’s way of dealing with humanity, that a group may be dealt with atrociously. In contrast, the other group is represented by criminals who remain immune from retribution. This is expressed in his statement regarding witnesses who want to testify that they have no right to rob future generations of knowledge about the past. Elie claims that to forget the dead is tantamount to re-enacting their execution. Elie’s faith in the preservation of humanity is solid and is founded upon the deep conviction that the universe is a Supreme power. The human heart remains adamant that the principle of perfect science is vital. Also, he stresses the importance of forgiveness considerably as he is opposed to people who forget about the tragic events to emphasize the theme.

Background information

In Night, Elie Wiesel explores how countless religious people were heading to death chambers with hollow faces. He sees the Germans putting the little in nocent children in the gas chambers or sending them to the gallows. The essence of this life on earth and creation was why he took an interest in religious studies and religion. When he reaches the concentration camp, he starts to doubt the presence of God. He also thinks that if such great force existed, God would not allow such occurrences, and he would protect the chosen people. As the internal struggle for the faith continues, he insists that “man is bigger, greater than God.” Indeed, most of the camp’s inmates face the same question of God’s reality. It is evident that every person is questioning the very presence of God, weeping, ‘Where is God? ‘Elie is numb and loses faith in God as he feels he will never believe in God. The theme of faith in God, therefore, also goes along with other thematic ideas like faith.

In night is used in the book as a metaphor for death, the soul’s darkness, and lack of faith. It comes up repeatedly as an image. And when the scene is set during the day, the night may be invoked. Remember all the horrible things that happen at night: Mrs. Schächter has her dreams of flames, hell, and death; Eliezer and his father arrive at Auschwitz and see the smokestacks and stand in line all night long with the scent of death in their noses; the night the soup tastes like corpses; they walk through long nights and, piled on top of each other, smothering each other to death. As Eliezer himself says, “The days were like nights, and the nights left the dregs of their darkness in our hearts” (7.22). The night is also a metaphor for how the soul was immersed in pain and hopelessness.

Elie offers a comprehensive account of the deplorable conditions faced by refugees who have been imprisoned against their will in the Nazi concentration camp. He vividly recalls the babies’ brutal slaughter that Nazi soldiers threw in the gas chambers and mercilessly murdered. He also does not fail to note the paralyzing terror that hit all the detainees during transfer to another concentration camp. His account of the gruesome changes shows that many prisoners have lost their lives. Elie referred to the mass killing of Jews as a barbaric act that he could not rationalize. In his disillusioned condition, Elie resorted to the sarcasm with which he congratulated Hitler for keeping his pledge to rid Germany of vermin, citizens of Jewish descent (Wiesel 80). Elie found reassurance and comfort in the fact that his dad stayed at his side for years of hard work; however, he struggled to understand why God allowed such inhumanity to endure.

“From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me.

The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me” (115).

With this picture, Wiesel leaves us at the end of his career, and it is a haunting vision in which Wiesel no longer recognizes the individual before him. By identifying himself as a skeleton, Wiesel also reveals that he is living death; merely being alive does not mean that his soul or humanity has survived. That Wiesel separates himself from this corpse is also a strong way to indicate that his conscience did not know this being before him; whatever had happened in the death camps deprived him of his sense of self.

Conclusion

Elie is against people forgetting the horrific events that occurred. Elie argues that people need to consider unpleasant aspects of the experience to avoid making mistakes in the present and future. Finally, Elie’s last plea is about people preferring nonviolent solutions over violent outbursts that result in the loss of life. The protection of the human race is unwavering and is founded on a strong belief in the presence of the Supreme Power ruling the universe. It should be remembered that books’ content is not focused on technical research; however, it is based on memories of experiences and their cognitive evaluationADDIN CSL_CITATION {“citationItems”:[{“id”:”ITEM-1″,”itemData”:{“author”:[{“dropping-particle”:””,”family”:”Wiesel”,”given”:”Elie”,”non-dropping-particle”:””,”parse-names”:false,”suffix”:””}],”id”:”ITEM-1″,”issued”:{“date-parts”:[[“2012″]]},”number-of-pages”:”1-144″,”title”:”Night – Elie Wiesel – Google Books”,”type”:”book”},”uris”:[“http://www.mendeley.com/documents/?uuid=352c11a1-c035-37ae-8b21-2415a00de7a6″]}],”mendeley”:{“formattedCitation”:”(Wiesel)”,”plainTextFormattedCitation”:”(Wiesel)”,”previouslyFormattedCitation”:”(Wiesel)”},”properties”:{“noteIndex”:0},”schema”:”https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json”}(Wiesel).

Work Cited

ADDIN Mendeley Bibliography CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Wiesel, Elie. Night – Elie Wiesel – Google Books. 2012, https://books.google.co.ke/books/about/Night.html?id=ELbHiPmYSM4C&redir_esc=y.