...Eliezer’s Character Change The Holocaust was a devastating time in history where Jews were forced into concentration camps and worked, starved, or burned to death. One of the most influential writers who lived during this time period was Elie Wiesel. Wiesel’s Night is a memoir depicting the journey of a young boy, Eliezer, who experienced the Holocaust at a very young age. The Nazis occupied Hungary in the spring of 1944, and Eliezer and his family are deported to a concentration camp. While at several different concentration camps, Eliezer faces a variety of different situations, and he learns to adapt to his circumstances. As his father becomes weaker and weaker throughout the memoir, Elie starts to develop mixed emotions for him. During...
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...Maschler AP Literature-Band 6 May 1, 2011 Major Works Data Sheet- Night Title: Night Author: Elie Wiesel Date of Publication: 1958 Genre: autobiography, memoir Historical information about period of publication: World War II, and the Holocaust, ended in April 1945 when the liberating Allied armies came through the conquered territories in Nazi Europe. Night describes 16 year old Elie’s loss of faith in God, humanity, family and morality in general. Elie, therefore, vowed to not speak of his experience in Auschwitz, Buna or Buchenwald (or any event between 1943 and 1945, from the beginning of the occupation of Hungary to Germany’s liberation in 1945) for ten years, until he had time to internalize this dramatic loss, and regain his faith and possession of his memory and life. In 1954, after realizing that even less than ten years after the end of the Holocaust, the world was already forgetting and Jews were abandoning their roots, the time had come to testify and justify to the world that Hitler had not succeeded. Biographical Information about the author: Eliezer “Elie” Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928 in Sighet Romania, where his memoir Night begins. In his childhood (up to the Nazi occupation of Romania) his father encouraged his study of the Torah, other Judaic texts and other literary works. As described in the beginning of Night, Elie was also curious about the realm of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism. From 1944 to 1945, Elie...
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...In Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night, the narrator describes how he struggled to survive in numerous concentration camps during the Holocaust. Eliezer changes throughout the text from a religious to an unemotional, lifeless being; the dehumanization he endured in the camps caused him to lose his childhood. Elie Wiesel uses simile, personification, and metaphor to demonstrate the effects of dehumanization. Wiesel uses simile to demonstrate that dehumanization causes people to act like animals. For example, Eliezer states how inhumanly his actions are: “ A man appeared, crawling like a worm in the direction of the cauldrons”(Wiesel 66). This quote demonstrates that people would do anything for the survival of themselves. Even if they were shot down, they would want to help themselves first before others. This quote is animal-like because, in the story, Eliezer is describing this prisoner to a worm. Elie dehumanizes others because he is jealous and wants what others have. The use of the word worm implies to an animal who slithers on the ground. In conclusion, Wiesel uses simile to demonstrate that dehumanization causes people to act like animals. Wiesel uses personification to demonstrate that dehumanization causes people to go crazy. For example, Eliezer states, “We...
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...Compare and Contrast Anthem with Night Even though books come in many genres, they can still be compared and contrasted. This applies to almost all books. For example, Eliezer Wiesel’s Night and Ayn Rand’s Anthem are different genres. However, the similarities and differences between these author’s works are definite and deserve analysis. Such similarities include how the societies handle the executions of criminals. In Anthem, Equality has to stand “...in the great square with all the children and all the men of the city, sent to behold the burning” (Rand, 38). During Elie’s experience in the Holocaust, he and everyone else in his camp has to walk “...past the hanged boy and stared at his extinguished eyes, the tongue gaping from his mouth. The Kapos forced everyone to look him squarely in the face” (Wiesel, 63). Also, both Elie and Equality receive messages from watching a public execution. When the pipel is hanged, Elie thinks that God is no longer with the Jews and takes it to...
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...RELIGION AND SOCIETY UNIT ONE * The Holocaust By Chelsea Nguyen 11 Silver QUESTION NUMBER 3: Discuss the relationship Wiesel has with God throughout Night. Eliezer Wiesel presents the Jewish faith in a moment of extreme darkness however, what gives him the courage and strength to continue to live is his connection with religion and his relationship with God. Initially Elie shows strong devotion, then becomes disillusioned with God’s power, and ultimately redefines the position God holds in his life. In the beginning, Elie Wiesel’s relationship with God in Night shows strong devotion. Wiesel made spirituality inherent to all activities, wished to spend his life focused around Judaism, and devoted all his free time and energy on religious studies. Wiesel believed that religion was a basic survival need, showing that he followed his religion instinctively. When asked why he prayed, Wiesel couldn’t think of a proper answer and thought, “…strange question, why did I live, why did I breathe?”. Wiesel maintained confidence in religion as the situation deteriorated. Wiesel and his people gave thanks to God for survival, keeping hope that God was putting them through a test of hardships what would keep them alive if they kept their faith. When they had arrived at Auschwitz, they thanked God and were able to regain their confidence because, “Here was a sudden release from the terrors of the previous nights”. Wiesel thanked God for the little things that helped him because he wanted...
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...with God and deny questioning His Being. Wiesel was one of the Jews who survived the Holocaust during World War ll. Wiesel’s identity of God changed during his experience in Auschwitz due to the harsh conditions faced. In the novel Night, by Elie Wiesel the major theme throughout the whole story is that people struggle to maintain any sort of faith in god when faced with extreme struggles. The greatest change to Elie Wiesel’s identity was his loss of faith in God. Before leaving with his family to the camps, Elie was very religious person he would cry after praying at night. When the German police came to take the Jews to the ghettos, they pulled Elie from his prayer. Elie thanks God when he was told he is...
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...Night by: Elie Wiesel I rarely read a historical novel that captures my attention and immediately intrigues me, however, Night by Elie Wiesel is a novel that did. Elie Wiesel’s novel is about a young Jewish boy named Eliezer who is living in his hometown, Sighet. Eliezer spends a lot of his time studying the first five books of the Old Testament, and the main idea of Jewish mysticism, the Cabbala. Moshe the Beadle is a friend and teacher of Jewish mysticism to Eliezer. Eliezer is very fond of Moshe the Beadle, but his time with him is shortened when Eliezer finds out that Moshe is being deported. Shortly after Moshe was deported, he successfully escaped to try and inform the people that the German secret police had taken over his train and...
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...Elie Wiesel’s Break Of Silence One of the most dreadful events in the history of mankind: the Holocaust during World War II. The holocaust was a genocide of Jews, homosexuals, mentally handicapped, and crippled. The holocaust killed more than six million Jews alone. Elie Wiesel is a Jew who went through the terror of the holocaust and its concentration camp. He tells his story in his book Night. Night reveals how Wiesel lost his family, faith, and innocence to the evil of mankind during the holocaust. Wiesel believes it is important for people today to read this book because they need to be shown how important it is not to keep silent and let something like the holocaust happen again. Elie has some of the most marvelous figurative language throughout the novel, starting off with some metaphors. Elie and the rest of the block are running to a peculiar concentration camp, with no rest Elie starts having speculation of what will happened if he stops running. “ A great ideal wave of men came rolling onward and would have crushed me like an ant” (87). No analysis How does this relate to the author’s purpose? The next phase awkward phrase is about when there was two cauldrons of soup in the middle of the road with no one to guard it. “Two lambs with hundreds of wolves lying in the wait for them. Two lambs without a shepherd, free for the taking. But who would dare?” (59) Have you ever been so mad at someone that everytime you talk to them you questioned them with anger or say...
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...Elie’s Faith Throughout His Life Elie Wiesel’s Night tells the haunting tale of a young man being turned into an animal because of his religion. Elie was a passionate teen boy who was devoted to Judaism living in Czechoslovakia. But soon, Nazi Germany begins the Final Solution, a meticulous plan to eradicate all Jews and any other unorthodox humans in Europe. Thus, Elie and his family is transported to the concentration camp, Auschwitz. He faces the horrors of the camp, and his faith begins to waver as he and God watch innocent lives being stripped away. Throughout the book, Elie is constantly battling his devotion to God, changing from the faithful teen in the beginning to the animalistic man who hated his god and back to a man who was able to regain his faith. Eliezer was extremely devoted in his religious studies in the beginning, almost as if all his trust and hope went into God. He had a fiery passion to pursue and study the ancient, holy texts of his people, keeping his faith close to his heart. He spent his time either studying or staying at a place of worship. Elie began at the early age of twelve, saying that “I believed profoundly. During the day I studied the Talmud, and at night I ran to the synagogue...
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...Elie Wiesel’s Loss of Innocence There comes a time in one’s life where a tragic event results in the loss of innocence and an increase in knowledge. Unfortunately this is one of life’s few promises. Some experience this ablution a lot sooner than they should. In children who survived the holocaust in concentration camps, their innocence was taken as soon as their ordinary everyday life was imposed upon by the Nazis. In Elie Wiesel’s book Night, he describes himself as an innocent teenager, a child whose innocence was taken from him as the result of the nefariousness performed by the Nazis in World War Two. Elie and his family were transported to Birkenau where his family was torn apart, leaving him with his father, his sisters and his mother. Once they were separated, he began to slowly lose his innocence. Towards the end of 1941, in the small village of Sighet, Hungary, twelve-year-old Elie Wiesel spent most of his time studying the Talmud. Elie was one of four children born to his mother and father. Hilda was the eldest, then Bea, he was the third, and Tzipora was the youngest. The two eldest sisters helped the parents run the family store while Elie stayed home to study. Elie was very passionate about the theology of his religion, Judaism. He studied Talmud by day and by night he would go to the synagogue to pray. One of his main interests was Kabbalah which is an aspect of Jewish mysticism. Elie asked his father to find him a master to guide him in his...
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