Elie Wiesel Symbolism In Night

Night by Elie Wiesel was a strong piece of writing, putting the reader through the struggles of a father and son going through the evils of the holocaust. Eliezer, the main character, survives the turmoil, but unfortunately his father does not. His father makes it through most of the hardships and arrives in Buchenwald, where he dies from both physical abuse and dysentery. Eliezer was in the bunk right above his father when he was aggressively beaten the night he had died. Eliezer, fearful that he would have been beaten as well, did not step in to help his father and ultimately watched him suffer and die. The death of his father is one life-changing event among many that Eliezer is put through throughout the duration of the story. Eliezer
Night symbolizes the loss of something or death of something in this book. The loss that is most referred to in Night is the loss of a god. With everything that is happening during this time, prisoners believe that the presence of a god cannot be. Thinking intently on this matter, I came to the conclusion that I would have to agree that the presence of a god couldn’t be. If I were being persecuted, tortured, or murdered like the Jewish people and the other groups of people during this time, I would struggle in keeping my faith in a god alive. It would take an extremely strong belief for someone to still consider a god is looking over him or her during the
Eliezer sees corpses all over the concentration camp, whether they are being buried, sent to the crematorium, or just looking at himself in the mirror. A corpse symbolizes the obvious, which is physical death, but also symbolizes the spiritual death of that person. Eliezer says that he could see it in the eyes of some of the prisoners that they have just given up. Their drives to keep living have gone away and are ultimately walking corpses just waiting for their chance to be murdered in the concentration camp. Overall, Night by Elie Wiesel was a very strong piece of writing. The accounts were very similar to what the author went through during his course in the holocaust. The eye opening accounts allowed me to put myself in the position of Eliezer and contemplate what I would be thinking and going through if I was there with him. I highly recommend Night to anyone interested in learning more about the