Night
Study Guide
Characters:
Eliezer - The narrator of Night and the stand-in for the memoir’s author, Elie Wiesel. Night traces Eliezer’s psychological journey, as the Holocaust robs him of his faith in God and exposes him to the deepest inhumanity of which man is capable. Despite many tests of his humanity, however, Eliezer maintains his devotion to his father. It is important to note that we learn Eliezer’s last name only in passing, and that it is never repeated. His story—which parallels Wiesel’s own biography—is intensely personal, but it is also representative of the experiences of hundreds of thousands of Jewish teenagers.
Chlomo - Even though he is the only character other than Eliezer who is present throughout the memoir, Eliezer’s father is named only once, at the end of Night. Chlomo is respected by the entire Jewish community of Sighet, and by his son as well. He and Eliezer desperately try to remain together throughout their concentration camp ordeal.
Moshe the Beadle - Eliezer’s teacher of Jewish mysticism, Moshe is a poor Jew who lives in Sighet. He is deported before the rest of the Sighet Jews but escapes and returns to tell the town what the Nazis are doing to the Jews. Tragically, the community takes Moshe for a lunatic.
Akiba Drumer - A Jewish Holocaust victim who gradually loses his faith in God as a result of his experiences in the concentration camp.
Madame Schächter - A Jewish woman from Sighet who is deported in the same cattle car as Eliezer. Madame Schächter is taken for a madwoman when, every night, she screams that she sees furnaces in the distance. She proves to be a prophetess, however, as the trains soon arrive at the crematoria of Auschwitz.
Juliek - A young musician whom Eliezer meets in Auschwitz. Juliek reappears late in the memoir, when Eliezer hears him playing the violin after the death march to Gleiwitz.
Tibi and Yosi - Two brothers with whom Eliezer becomes friendly in Buna. Tibi and Yosi are Zionists. Along with Eliezer, they make a plan to move to Palestine after the war.
Dr. Josef Mengele - When he arrives at Auschwitz, Eliezer encounters the historically infamous Dr. Mengele. Mengele was the cruel doctor who presided over the selection of arrivals at Auschwitz/Birkenau. Known as the “Angel of Death,” Mengele’s words sentenced countless prisoners to death in the gas chambers. He also directed horrific experiments on human subjects at the camp.
Idek - Eliezer’s Kapo (a prisoner conscripted by the Nazis to police other prisoners) at the electrical equipment warehouse in Buna. Despite the fact that they also faced the cruelty of the Nazis, many Kapos were as cruel to the prisoners as the Germans. During moments of insane rage, Idek beats Eliezer.
Franek - Eliezer’s foreman at Buna. Franek notices Eliezer’s gold tooth and gets a dentist in the camp to pry it out with a rusty spoon.
Rabbi Eliahou - A devout Jewish prisoner whose son abandons him in one of many instances in Night of a son behaving cruelly toward his father. Eliezer prays that he will never behave as Rabbi Eliahou’s son behaves.
Zalman - One of Eliezer’s fellow prisoners. Zalman is trampled to death during the run to Gleiwitz.
Meir Katz - Eliezer’s father’s friend from Buna. In the cattle car to Buchenwald, Katz saves Eliezer’s life from an unidentified assailant.
Stein - Eliezer’s relative from Antwerp, Belgium, whom he and his father encounter in Auschwitz. Trying to bolster his spirit, Eliezer lies to Stein and tells him that his family is still alive and healthy.
Hilda - Eliezer’s oldest sister.
Béa - Eliezer’s middle sister.
Tzipora - Eliezer’s youngest sister.
Literary Analysis
point of view · Eliezer speaks in the first person and always relates the autobiographical events from his perspective.
tone · Eliezer’s perspective is limited to his own experience, and the tone of Night is therefore intensely personal, subjective, and intimate. Night is not meant to be an all-encompassing discourse on the experience of the Holocaust; instead, it depicts the extraordinarily personal and painful experiences of a single victim.
tense · Past
setting (time) · 1941–1945, during World War II
settings (place) · Eliezer’s story begins in Sighet, Transylvania (now part of Romania; during Wiesel’s childhood, part of Hungary). The book then follows his journey through several concentration camps in Europe: Auschwitz/Birkenau (in a part of modern-day Poland that had been annexed by Germany in 1939), Buna (a camp that was part of the Auschwitz complex), Gleiwitz (also in Poland but annexed by Germany), and Buchenwald (Germany).
protagonist · Eliezer
major conflict · Eliezer’s struggles with Nazi persecution, and with his own faith in God and in humanity
rising action · Eliezer’s journey through the various concentration camps and the subsequent deterioration of his father and himself
climax · The death of Eliezer’s father
falling action · The liberation of the concentration camps, the time spent in silence between Eliezer’s liberation and Elie Wiesel’s decision to write about his experience, referred to in the memoir when Eliezer jumps ahead to events that happened after the Holocaust
themes · Eliezer’s struggle to maintain faith in a benevolent God; silence; inhumanity toward other humans; the importance of father-son bond
symbols · Night, fire
foreshadowing · Night does not operate like a novel, using foreshadowing to hint at surprises to come. The pall of tragedy hangs over the entire novel, however. Even as early as the work’s dedication, “In memory of my parents and my little sister, Tzipora,” Wiesel makes it evident that Eliezer will be the only significant character in the book who survives the war. As readers, we are not surprised by their inevitable deaths; instead, Wiesel’s narrative shocks and stuns us with the details of the cruelty that the prisoners experience.
Plot Summary:
The autobiography began in 1941 with Elie and his family living in Sighet, an area in Germany. In 1944 German and Hungarian police set up ghettos where all the Jews and other religious and ethnic people were kept, and Elie and his family were basically kept captive in this area by the Gestapo. This was just until they were to be taken away to the concentration camps. When Elie and his family arrived at the concentration camp in Birkenau, he was separated from his mother and sister, whom he later found out had been killed. It was hard for him to deal with the fact that he would never see them again, and he wanted to give up. Elie almost killed himself while he was on the line waiting to get into the camp, facing the fire pits. A line straying to the left and one to the right decided his fate. If he was pointed on the right line, he would be immediately sent to the fire pit. He lied saying that he was 18, but was actually 14. When he was almost at the front of the line, he decided to throw himself at the barbed wire fence, rather than dying by fire. He changed his mind when the line suddenly shifted and he didn't have to go in the fire after all. He was relieved, but also dispirited by knowing that he would never see his mother and sister again.
Elie's father kept him going, constantly saying that they would make it, and that he should never lose his faith. Upon arriving, all the men had to give in their clothes and personal articles, and get checked physically by the SS troops to see their physical condition, and to deplete them of any confidence and privacy they had left.
They were sent off to Auschwitz where they were put to work. They couldn't say they were skilled workers, because as a result they would be separated. Elie worked in a factory, where he met a lot of people, including a girl from France. He was separated from his father at that time. He liked Auschwitz better because it was cleaner and set up nicer than Birkenau. He had become numb to beatings by now, and had witnessed numerous hangings of his friends at the camp.
He was then sent from Auschwitz to Buna with his father. He had become accustomed to the stench of burning bodies. He injured his foot, which caused him to have an operation. After the operation, the camp was sent out to march because the Russians were coming to bomb the camps. Elie was told not to stay in the hospital because he would be killed. So, he went out with his weak father and barely healed foot to march. It was the middle of the winter, and none of the prisoners were dressed well enough. They were headed for Buchenwald, which was a forty-two mile march. They had to run for most of the time. Once they reached Buchenwald, they rested for awhile. Elie's father passed away at the camp from dysentery. Elie had to continue going on without his father. They were later liberated at Buchenwald, and Elie was one of the very few to survive.
Themes:
* Death
* Faith
* Hatred
* Survival
* Perserverence
* Loss of Innocence
Key Issues:
Death-- A theme which was used throughout the book. It was shown through the loss of loved ones, especially when Elie lost his entire family to the concentration camps. It was also shown through the constant torture that went on, and the putrid smell of dead bodies penetrating in the prisoner's nostrils.
Faith - Elie was told by his father to never lose his faith of his religion it would help him through everything, and keep him strong. At first Elie wasn't sure of his faith because if there was a God, then why did he create the situation that they were in.
Hatred - The Nazi's acted through hatred against the Jews, Gypsies, and many others who stood in their way. They killed and tortured for no other reason than hate. The hate prevailed over all and it took over the minds of everyone.
Loss of Innocence - Elie was a young boy when he was taken to the concentration camps, and he led a sheltered life. He did not realize how cruel people could be, and what far measures they would take when faced with power and death. He saw the torture, and the death of his family, which brought him great pain, but also made him grow up and face reality.
Morals and Life Applications:
The autobiography, Night , by Elie Wiesel is written proof of the real life horror that existed during the Holocaust. It is not fiction, therefore its life applications are evident. One should never lose faith or whatever guiding force that may keep them going. This faith was the only force that helped Elie to survive, and without this faith Elie would have surely succumbed to dying. Some morals of this autobiography are that life is not always fair, and people are not either. People give in to power to save themselves and protect their own lives. People will sometimes hurt others, even those close to them, if put in a life or death situation. The major purpose of this autobiography is to recount the events that took place during the Holocaust. One may think that Elie wrote his story to tell people of the great tragedy that took the lives of his family and of millions of others that were taken for no reason at all.