- What did the word night mean to you before you read the book? How has the meaning of the word changed for you? How did it change for the author?
- Each night is the end of one day and the start of another. What does that suggest about the need to bear witness? To not only tell the story but also have the story be heard and acknowledged?
- Wiesel, in recounting the first night in the concentration camp says, “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in the camp, that has turned my life into one long night.…” What does it mean for a life to be turned into “one long night”?
- Other rhetorical choice you might consider include the style of narration, the decision to write in the first person as opposed to third, and the length of the memoir (in fact, the original manuscript was several hundred pages longer).
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Discuss why Wiesel titled his autobiographical story “Night.”
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When I think of the word night I think of peacefulness, darkness, sleep, and the coming of the morning. I believe that when Wiesel was young and naïve he shared the same associations with night. However, his perception of the word changes drastically over the course of the Holocaust. Wiesel tells the reader that "nocturnal silence…deprived [him] …of the desire to live" (32). The quiet of the night ceases to be peaceful and calm for Wiesel as his life becomes confined to concentration camps; the silence reflects his own powerlessness. In the concentration camps Wiesel cannot speak up or protect his father, he is trapped in a weakened body living a nightmare.
ReplyDeleteAfter his liberation Wiesel looks into a mirror and sees a corpse reflected back which symbolizes that the horrors of Auschwitz and Buchenwald killed the person he once was. He feels that he is no longer a person, that his humanity has been lost, and knows that his identity was destroyed in the concentration camps. Wiesel associates his dehumanization, his spiritual death, with the first fall of night in Auschwitz. Ultimately he likens his existence to that of a "damned soul…condemned to wander through space…seeking oblivion" and thus every night in the camps is just part of an eternal, hopeless darkness with no dawn in sight (34). The image of the Jews as lost souls in a darkened land is incredibly powerful and likely the reason that Wiesel chose the name "Night" for his memoir.
-Alex L.
As Alex says, night is often quiet, but the quiet can be either peaceful or sinister. Night can be the absence of light, when darkness consumes what may previously have been illuminated. In the beginning of the book, the Jewish community in Sighet is able to live happily. In the first chapter, the community is still hopeful for the future, although cheer begins to wane slowly as Nazi involvement in the town increases. Night falls on page 10, when plans to move the Jews are revealed to the council and Eliezer’s mother has “a premonition of evil” (10). Darkness, and therefore night, is often associated with evil, and Wiesel may be highlighting the despair and evil of the crimes perpetrated during the Holocaust.
ReplyDeleteNight is also when the final hours of the day are. For many each selection brought the end nearer. Wiesel commented on a day of selection that “this must be how one stands as the last judgment” (68). Many prisoners reached their end, the end of a night, at the camps. A prisoner in the hospital suggests this too, stating that “Hitler… will annihilate all Jews before the clock strikes twelve” (76).
I feel that the title does in fact represent both aspects of night as Carolyn and Alex mentioned above. One is peaceful, serene, right before the sun shines once again, the other dark, sinister, the one that children fear. I felt though that despite the darkness reflected in Wiesel’s account of his experiences in the Nazi death camps, he did chose the title with the idea that despite how terrifying the ‘night’ was, morning did arrive once again.
ReplyDeleteWhen Weisel entered the camps for the first time he notes that “there were some blue-tinged skylights” and that “the antechamber of Hell must look like [it]” (32). Although he was entering a place where he would have to fight for his life every day, Weisel states that as the “darkness gradually fad[ed]” he had “ceased to feel fear” (33). Suggesting that even though Wiesel ends his tragic account as a “corpse gaz[ing] back at [himself]” there is some amount of hope as he enters a new ‘day’ in his life (109).
-Stephanie
I agree with Alex, Carolyn, and Stephanie. Night generally symbolizes something negative or fearful. I would like to bring faith into the discussion. For Wiesel, his faith is incredibly important, even beginning the book by describing his first interactions with faith. He states that, “I believed profoundly…at night I ran to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the temple” (1). Generally in religion, night symbolizes the absence of God. According to religious texts, in the beginning of time there was only darkness. When God came, he gave Earth light. When Wiesel talks about the first night of camp, he says that his life turned into eternal night and that his faith was consumed. He states, “Never shall I forget that night…which has turned my life into one long night…Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever” (32). At the same moment that his faith is lost, his life is turned into eternal night, so it is reasonable that the reason his life is eternal night is partly because God is no longer present in his life. Thus night may represent the period of his life where he was without faith, which is what his memoir is about, leading him to title it "Night."
ReplyDelete~Amanda
I very much agree with Amanda’s description of the title “Night.” Not only is night a fearful time of darkness, it can also symbolize the absence of faith, as well as hope. Through Wiesel’s account of the Nazi death camps, we see him lose everything that he has come to know, including his family and religion. Elie’s faces the darkness of night, as he can no longer see; he loses his past life completely. When Elie’s father dies, he says “I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. But I had no more tears. And, in the depths of my being, in the recesses of my weakened conscience, could I have searched it, I might perhaps have found something like—free at last!” (106). The word “Night” encompasses a sense of darkness and the unknown. Elie no longer knew himself as a person, and the camps took his conscience away from him. The title “Night” is a simple word that carries much meaning of Elie’s transformation in the camps.
ReplyDelete-Leah
We have painted a very good picture of “Night” so far. The only thing that hasn’t been mention is the effect of darkness on the ability to see. Not only that night contributes to psychological fear of the unknown, but it also evokes the feeling of lost and lack in the sense of self. In the final passage of the book, Elie Wiesel wrote “I wanted to see myself in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto.
ReplyDeleteFrom the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me.
The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.” Despite the fact that Elie survived the holocaust, his true soul is dead. The corps that he described is the image of himself during the suffering that he endured. He has lost connections with the person he used to be, his faith in God, his faith in mankind, and his innocence were destroyed and he has become someone completely different. Visual perception is one of the most important senses, without the ability to see oneself, it is difficult to maintain one’s identity. Night reminds Elie of the atrocities she went through at the camp. By giving the title Night, she implies that she is still living with the trauma everyday as everyday comes day and night. The experience and its scar are still significant in her life.
Paul S.
On the first page of Night, literary critic Curt Leviant writes "Wiesel has taken his own anguish and imaginatively metamorphosed it into art." This description of Wiesel's book tells us why Wiesel titled his book with the word "Night." As stated in previous posts, night-time for Elie was both a "sinister and peaceful" place. It was a place, as Paul mentions, where Elie would lose his identity and his faith in "God...mankind...and innocence." In the book, I feel as if emphasis is placed on the horrors and feelings of discomfort that Elie felt during night-fall amidst the war. The fact that he was not able to maintain his identity during night-time indicates an irony behind why he may have titled his book with the word "Night." While night-fall was not Elie's favorite time of day, he seems to have used the title "night" to channel his feels of anguish away from himself. He is using night-fall's ability - of taking away one's identity - for his own benefit. By titling this novel in such a way, Elie personally did not have to relive parts of his emotional past. Because night time during the Holocaust represented a means of escapism for Elie, the choice of the word, "night," for his title, indicates that Elie wanted to take his anguish and sorrow and mask them with night-fall's own dreary effects.
ReplyDeleteAlex T
For a life to be turned into one long night, I believe that to mean Eliezer has lost all hope in ever living as a free Jew. He states in this powerful passage that he shall never "forget those moments which murdered my God,"(32) meaning he no longer believes in God. He then states that he will never forget these things, even if he lives as long as God. So he believes figuratively he will never see the light of day for the rest of his life and that the God he once knew has been murdered. The sun could be staring him in the face and birds could be perched on his shoulder singing and yet to all that joy around him, Eliezer would still be impervious.
ReplyDeleteIn response to the last question of this page, I think limiting Wiesel's memoir to 109 pages (in my copy at least) makes it stand out from other Holocaust memoirs. Similar to how All But My Life by Gerda Wiessman Klein stands out because of its optimistic tone, Night stands out because it is succinct. The drama, gore, and horrifying anti-semitism found in every Holocaust memoir fights comfortably in Night.
-Michelle
I agree with many of the opinions previously stated here. It's clear that Elie Wiesel eventually feels that nighttime has taken away his "will to live" and that he fears it a little. Initially, a person reading this book may see night as a peaceful time for rest. Eliezer became unable to see it this way. For him, night became a time of worry, where it was impossible to see what may be coming or who may be lurking waiting to strike. Eliezer is also, eventually, unable to rest at any point during the day. Eliezer says at one point that his life has become "one long night," and that it has become imperative for him to always be on the lookout if he wants to survive. Night becomes the most dangerous time for Eliezer, when help cannot be counted upon if someone attacks him and when there's almost no way to defend himself when someone does.
ReplyDeleteElie Wiesel named his book “Night” to allow the reader to experience the same transformation night underwent during his experience. Readers begin the book with the same view of night that Eliezer had before he was sent to Auschwitz. While reading, this view changes to incorporate the same feeling of dread that Eliezer felt while under the Nazis rule.
-Jocelyn