Similarities Between Night And Perks Of Being A Wallflower

Martin Luther King Jr. once wrote “...only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.” In other words, only amongst negativity are the positive things in the world portrayed. This quote is proven true in both Night by Elie Wiesel and Perks Of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. Both Elie Wiesel and Stephen Chbosky use the literary elements of conflict and symbolism to show that only when things are the worst is when the positive sides in life are revealed.

In the Novel Night, the reader is introduced to the character Elie Wiesel who is conflicted between choosing whether he should be at his fathers side or not. in Auschwitz, the death camp Elie is taken to, he remarks all the children abandoning their fathers because they saw them as weak and wanted to fight for themselves. Elie struggled between choosing his father, or life and was uncertain of what decision he should make. Eventually Elie learns that staying with his father is the right thing to do because he was not going to leave him to die alone in such a cruel place. He realized how brutal the situation was and knew his father was the only thing he had left.
Elie is contained at the death camp for several months and barely ever has anything to eat. Because of this, food has never been so valuable to the victims of Auschwitz. Therefore every time people received bread from soldiers, they would act as if it was something they've never seen before. the death camp dehumanized the people completely, and the fact that bread was the most valuable thing they had reveals how horrible the conditions were. Bread was their only hope to survive, when it was something so unimportant in a normal human’s