In the memoir Night, Elie Wiesel brilliantly illustrates the Nazis’ use of fear as a device to command the prisoners in concentration camps. In addition to exploring the ways in which the Nazis use fear as a tool of power, "Night" also examines the effects of this power dynamic on the Jewish prisoners themselves. Every prisoner was pushed to their mental limits. Fear was overwhelming. Such fear is shown to have caused many inmates to believe individual survival was superior to the condition of their fellow prisoners. From the moment the prisoners were released from the cattle cars, it was understood that obedience is of the utmost importance. Elie is introduced to this environment in a startling way, “Holding flashlights and sticks, they began to strike at us left and right, shouting: ‘Everybody out! Leave everything inside. Hurry up!’”(Wiesel 28). Everyone jumped out of the car immediately. The reaction to such …show more content…
Prisoners, like Elie's father, were harassed for asking simple questions, “Excuse me… could you tell me where the bathrooms are?” The gypsy stared at him for a long time, from head to toe…Then as if waking from a deep sleep, he slapped my father with such force that he fell down” (Wiesel 39). This particular situation is quite peculiar because the gypsy, while head of a tent, was a prisoner as well. Many of the prisoners struggle to maintain their humanity and dignity in the face of such overwhelming fear and oppression. Though some did not let it affect how they treated others, “ At the start of the third week, our Blockälteste was removed; he was judged too humane.” (Wiesel 44). This proves that Nazis wanted the prisoners to feel unsafe, in all contexts. Nazis did not want prisoners to trust each other. If trust formed amongst all the inmates, that could threaten the Nazi’s
Without a doubt, the camps were built to alienate the prisoners, into the belief that they
Are you more affected by fear or power, looking at the book night people show the effects of fear or power. Fear is a sense of an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat. Power is the ability to do something or act in a particular way, especially as a faculty or quality. The novel Night Shows both power and fear in character or directed to characters. While fear can make you brave, fear corrupts people or characters in this book because of death and religion.
The memoir Night explains how Elie and his family are originally separated and sorted by sex, age, profession, and physical capability. After being separated from his sister and mother, with only his father by his side, he is forced to go through the grueling process of camp admission, even after learning the horrific fates suffered by his sister and mother. ”Who knows what may have become of them - but we had little concern for their fate. We were incapable of thinking of anything at all... A barrel of petrol at the entrance..
From seeing this quote from Wiesel’s book, Night, one can see the terror that ran through some of the Jewish concentration camps during the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel’s book titled Night showed of the cruelty showed
When Elie first started his Journey to the concentration camp, hundreds were crammed into tiny cattle cars with little room and almost no necessary products for life. Elie’s account states, “Crammed into cattle cars by the Hungarian police, they cried silently. The train disappeared over the horizon; all that was left was thick, dirty smoke” (Weisel, Night 6). This memory Elie shared with his audience shows how vulnerable Jews are at this time. The Germans didn’t care about the conditions and the heartache the Jews endured.
It’s difficult to imagine the way humans brutally humiliate other humans based on their faith, looks, or mentality but somehow it happens. On the novel “Night” by Elie Wiesel, he gives the reader a tour of World War Two through his own eyes , from the start of the ghettos all the way through the liberation of the prisoners of the concentration camps. This book has several themes that develop throughout its pages. There are three themes that outstand from all the rest, these themes are brutality, humiliation, and faith. They’re the three that give sense to the reading.
From the small town of Sighet in Transylvania to the huge concentration camps of Auschwitz. Elie Wiesel, the author and victim of the book Night, the horrifying experience of the Holocaust. Wiesel is a 15 year old Jewish boy who was captured by the Germans or “Nazis” during WWII. He went through an overwhelming amount of trauma, like when he got separated from his mother and sisters and watching his father suffer an unbearable amount of pain that eventually killed him. The fact is, power is a tool that can corrupt itself and others, it can ruin people’s lives and it can do that without people even realizing it.
Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night tells the personal tale of his account of the inhumanity and brutality the Nazis showed during the Holocaust. Night depicts the story of a young Jew from the small town of Sighet named Eliezer. Wiesel and his family are deported to the concentration camp known as Auschwitz. He must learn to survive with his father’s help until he finds liberation from the horror of the camp. This memoir, however, hides a greater lesson that can only be revealed through careful analyzation.
In the novel, “Night” Elie Wiesel communicates with the readers his thoughts and experiences during the Holocaust. Wiesel describes his fight for survival and journey questioning god’s justice, wanting an answer to why he would allow all these deaths to occur. His first time subjected into the concentration camp he felt fear, and was warned about the chimneys where the bodies were burned and turned into ashes. Despite being warned by an inmate about Auschwitz he stayed optimistic telling himself a human can’t possibly be that cruel to another human.
Fear is Destructive Fear causes people to makes judgements. It’s what makes people cautious and skittish, mostly in unsafe situations. Without fear people’s life would be at risk. Throughout the memoir Night fear builds up over time, starting when the Germans taking over Sighet, they slowly start to take over their lives.
Courage is a word that used often or not, has it’s own meaning. Having courage to do the impossible is experienced in our everyday lives without even thinking, such as, taking out the trash, going to school, taking a step onto a unknown street, it happens to us all and can even have a dramatic impact on yourself, your future, and your life. In the book Night courage is experienced every single day of torture. Prisoners, such as Elie, face and fight for their own survival not knowing that their best weapon possessed in their hands was courage. Courage was a weapon, a very powerful weapon that could change your fate in an instant.
In the span of a lifetime one often faces many adversities that stand within their path. While some challenges will be overcome easily, others will take a lot more tenacity. When in the face of adversity it is key not to give up. One should always strive to persevere through their hardships, no matter how severe they seem to be. The author of the memoir “Night” Elie Wiesel, vividly describes his experiences in the concentration camp of Auschwitz.
After going through so much, many people do not have the same mindset as they did before. Being tortured and watching others being tortured changes a person’s life, especially Elie’s, his father’s, Moshe the Beadle’s, and Rabbi Eliahou’s. Elie Wiesel, the author of Night, shares his own experience of going through a concentration camp, and it is clear that many things in his life changed
Night is a powerful, first person account of the tragic horrors of the Holocaust written and endured by Elie Wiesel. In this dark literary piece, Wiesel's first hand tale of the atrocities and horrors endured in World War II concentration camps will leave an unforgettable, dark, macabre impression amongst readers that cannot be done with a simple listing of statistics. This tale of human perserverance and the dark side of human nature will cause readers to question their own humanity. Also, it will paint a vivid picture of the vile deeds that mankind is capable of expressing. Reading this book will leave a long lasting impression that is definitely not something that will be soon forgotten.
Elie Wiesel, the author of Night, describes the horrors of focusing on your own survival. Certain acts provoke inhumane acts throughout the ordeal. A central theme in Night is, even though it’s difficult, people should value compassion over their own survival. For instance, the evil of a lack of compassion affects thousands of prisoner lives.