a theme is a broad idea in a story, or a message or lesson conveyed by a work
Here are some ideas of what you could write about:
- Eliezer’s Struggle to Maintain Faith in God
- Silence
- Inhumanity Toward Other Humans
- Father-Son Bonds
- Death
- Faith
- Hatred
- Survival
- Perserverence
- Loss of Innocence
•Explain two of the Themes in NIGHT and how they are developed
Provide examples and page number of where the 2 themes are displayed in the story. This is essay you must write. Make sure you have a copy on your powerpoint and you have proof read your essay before posting. I will have examples provide for you in the comments section. Please read them if you need help.
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THeme topic: FAITH
It was this quote which when uttered eased the "wind of revolt" as the young Jewish men finally began contemplating a rebellion against the German Nazi's as they entered the concentration camp of Birkenau. Although these words had an impact for most of them men it didn't impact on Eliezer as he had already begin to lose faith in a God he had cherished so much. There is an apparent transformation in Elie as he changes from a devout Jewish boy into a man who questions the divine lore's "absolute justice." Elie explains this alteration throughout his memoir however it takes a deeper understanding to fully comprehend the complete shift in his faith. The reader is introduced to a dedicated and committed boy whose sole aim in life is to study the Talmud and learn the teachings of the Cabbala. Elie spent many hours praying in his local temple, even "weeping" because of the destruction of the temple in Israel. This naïve yet strong faith in God is ever emanate as Elie continues to nag his disinterested father to find him a mentor to help achieve his goal. After failing to do so Elie persuades a temple helper, Moshe the Beadle to assist him in his venture into the complex text of the Cabbala. This proves Elie's desire to further his comprehension of his religion. However this is not completely by choice more in fact by habit. When asked by Moshe "why did he pray"" no real answer was given by the young boy, his only reply was "why did we breathe"" this establishes a thought of blind faith which could be very easy for Elie to challenge when he matures.
Elie's faith is dealt a blow as he witnesses the fiery death pit of which laid countless babies used for target practise by the Nazi's. The vile image portrayed acts as the first moment in which Elie's faith is questioned as he queries Gods existence for allowing such evil act to occur. He even contemplates suicide before being ordered turn away from the ditch. The event which will be forever remembered by Elie begins to form the cracks in his dwindling faith.
The public hanging of the "pipel" further destroys Elie's faith. The slow and painful death of the young boy is a comparison to the death of Elie's beliefs.
For him it is not only the pipel who dies but also God. He considers that God "is hanging here on the gallows." Elie now believes that he has relinquished all of his loyalties towards God and ceases any form of ritual or pray which honours his lord. This is evident as the holy days of "Rosh Hashanah" and "Yom Kippur" occur. It is during the New Year celebrations where Elie pronouns that God has become the "accused" and he the "accuser." However within this rebellion it is also when he feels most "alone" and "empty." This shows that although Elie is attempting to renounce his beliefs he is also feeling a great void in his being. A second movement of revolt against God take places when Elie continues to disregard any form of ritual as he does not fast throughout The Day Of Atonement. Although this is also the wishes of his father he takes it upon himself to ensure he "swallows" his rations for the day to maintain his rebellious ways. However parts of Elie's faith does return even though unknowingly. Elie prays twice to a God he no longer believes in. The first time is when his father fails "selection." Elie turns to God in the hope that he will finally answer one of the Jews pleas and help to give Chlomo the strength to pass a second selection. Although he does Elie's faith is not fully returned. The Second occasion is after the retelling of "Rabbi Eliahou's son." Elie again prays to an "unjust" Lord to give him the power to never do what the Rabbi's son did and abandoned his father. Though this did rekindle Elie's beliefs for a moment, the moment passed and Elie's faith continued its demise.
Eliezer never really lost his faith it only transferred from being with God to mankind. He began believing that "man was stronger then God." The transformation was due to the constant subjections of brutality which forced an innocent young boy to quickly become a man before the time was right. This compelled Elie to question a faith he had not fully understood yet lived for it. Therefore as there were no true grounds for Elie to be able to use his beliefs in accessing and comprehending the situation, Judaism was swiftly tossed aside as it could not answer the questions Elie was asking of it. The major question being how could a god inflict so much pain on to its worshipers? This was the ultimate reason for what happened to Elie's faith. He now only believed in man kind.
The theme is hatred. The Nazi’s hatred is a major reality in the novel. They killed and tortured for no other reason than irrational hatred. (Page 4): “Without passion, without haste, they slaughtered their prisoners.”
Moche the Beadle could be considered a prophet in Night. (Page 5) Moche is imbued with the traits of a prophet – trying in vain to warn the Jews as in the Old Testament: “…I wanted to come, and to warn you. And see how it is, no one will listen to me…” Moche means “Moses” in Hebrew. Moses was a similar prophet who, in the Old Testament, led the Israelites out of bondage. He was similarly ignored by some of his people.
Madame Schachter has a nightmare on the train while the Jews from her little town are being deported to the unknown. She dreams about fire. (Page 22), she screams: “Look! Look at it! Fire! A terrible fire!” Unfortunately, people around her think she has gone mad, and they knock her to silence her.
The people believe that Moche is mad, and that he is trying to make them pity him. They even say that he has too much imagination. (Page 5) Perhaps the people do not believe what he says because it is too frightening to allow the horrors he describes to be true. It may have been easier to remain optimistic, and Moche’s news makes it harder to remain hopeful. Inside their quiet lives, they could not imagine that such horrible predictions could come true. In hindsight is it easy to see how the people who Moche warned could have saved themselves it they had they allowed themselves to believe these stories?
Night reminds me of a book I read a long time ago. The Diary of Anne Frank. Like Wiesel, she is a young Jewish girl, full of life and hope with a view toward her future. One difference however, is that she is not as devout in her faith in God. She is a typical teenaged girl. She and her family had to hide in an annex of rooms above her father’s office in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
At the end of the book, she and her family were discovered by the S.S police and were deported to the death camps. Anne, nor her sister survived the hardships and horrid conditions of the camp. She died before even reaching her sixteenth birthday.
I believe that to understand the future, one has to understand the past. The Second World War is a part of History. It sheds light upon many world leaders, and how some of them became evil and merciless to the point of madness. My life has been influenced by Night. I now know more about the horrors that was perpetrated on million of Jews. I can try to be a better person and change my present to make History more positive. Even if only in small contribution: being nice to people, trying to understand differences in people and their customs and beliefs. Night made me also think a lot. I became less focused on my own problems. No matter what I am faced with it I can always remember that million of innocent people endured horrible suffering. I believe Wiesel may have written this book so that no once can ever forget that the Holocaust happened and what it meant to his race. If Wiesel and his people could survive concentrations camps, I can survive anything.
Many more German Jews were eventually sent to extermination camps in the East and were killed there. The year after Kristallancht the German army invaded Poland and World War Two began. Now the Nazis expanded their deadly persecution of German Jew to include all the Jews of Europe. Now the entire continent was to be judenrein.
In July 1941, Hitler’s deputy, Reichmarschall Hermann Goring issued the order for the “final solution of the Jewish question.” As the German army moved east through Poland and deep into Russia Nazis killing squads followed. Jews were rounded up and shot, or put in ghettoes and killed later. In the conquered countries of Western Europe they were herded in boxcars and shipped to death camps.
theme: faith
One of the most important thing that this book talk about was the faith and how Eli when all this horrible thing had haven’t happen to him yet he was a type of kid that always go pray with his dad and believe in god. When the Nazis took them to the ghettos he still believe that the Nazis will relies them because he still have faith that that was going to happen. Them when he saw all this horrible things that the SS were going to the people he stop having faith. Specially when the SS were torturing this children in front of the prisoners Eli new at that moment that god was not with them no more. When the prisoners told him to still have faith he just didn’t have any no more he had became his heart in only hate against the SS and the prisoners because they didn’t defend their self's. he never thought that one day he will be relies from all this suffering. He also lost his faith when he saw his dad died and he could not do anything to not let his dad died. All this thing make Eli not have faith that one day he will be relies and see all his family. In one thing he was right he was not going to see his family anymore.
Theme Inhumanity Toward Other Humans
This theme is important because in this book show how the Nazis did not respect people. In one of the chapter it show how Eli is trying to tell his dad that he can not believe that they could burn people on his age that humanity would never tolerate it but his dad told him humanity is not concerted with us. This was on page 42. All this things that the SS did no the prisoners were not humanity they torture people. They killed children, women, and men. They make the horrible things that a person could do to another person. They have no respect to people. How the Nazis spread the families from each other just because what they believe and feel. Some of them was not even their fault of being like that like the children’s. only a sick person could do all this things that the Nazis did to them.
Ellie’s struggle to maintain his faith: I think he was struggling to maintain his faith because of all that was happening. When he saw all those Jews being killed, he thought, why isn’t god doing anything about it. He kept seeing his people suffer so that’s when he started losing his faith. He didn’t believe there was a god anymore. He still believed in god a little bit because when they were running nonstop, he saw a guy that had left his father just so he would have more chances to survive. When he saw that, he prayed to god so he wouldn’t do that to his dad.
Survival: At the beginning the boys father took care of him for a while. He would save him from death lots of times. They were also like best friends, they loved each other. As the kid grew they werent so close anymore. They still loved each other. Their relationship started to change because the dad got weaker. Now the boy was taking care of him. He saved him lots of times. When his father got sick the boy would give him his soup and bread. At the end his father got really sick and was almost dying from dysentery. One day the boy woke up and his father was missing. They probably had thrown him to the crematory.
I have chosen the theme survival. Mainly because this story is about the survival of the holocaust. Many times in the book elie could have bin dead but he was good at surviving and in many occasions survived. Wither because he got lucky or because he had the wits. Like in pg. 92 during the death run he says he feels like he just wants to collapse and die but he doesn't and instead feels himself as two eyeties and then again in pg. 85 he gets sent to the doctors for a foot problem he had. He scurvies this trial since he only had one day and his leg could have gotten amputated and he would not have bin able to run. He would have died.
I have also chosen the theme inhumanity towards other humans. In many cases throughout the book you read about cruel barbaric things that the Nazi do to the Jews. They didn't feed them they beat them put them in concentration camps killed there children and treat them as sub humans in total they killed 6 million Jews. Like in page 85 they make the half dead starved Jews run many miles in the cold whether. Many died from starvation the cold fatigue getting trampled, or all of the above. Also in page .103 they put them all cramped unable to breath in a cold train. They did not feed them or give them water. Then the people there bread crumbs into train so that they fought for it. A guy killed his father for bread…
I choose survival for this essay. The for me choosing survival is because in this story for Elie its all about survival. Its all about trying to stay alive. He tries to stay alive by listening to the SS soldiers. Even if they tell him not to or to do something then he makes a decision.
The camps played a large part in the Holocaust. It was a deliberate attempt for the Nazis to kill all the Jews. The Nazis used the first camps as prison camps. Most of these prisoners were Jewish. The reason for them being imprisoned was because of their political beliefs. Many of these people died because of the harsh ways. The Nazis still didn’t close the camps. Instead of closing the camps they expanded them. The Nazis filled their camps with religious people. The Nazis were the Aryan group. The religious people were Jews. Also were the Gypsies. Their were thousands.
First of all let me just tell you that millions of people died in the Holocaust. People have estimated that about 5.7 million people died. There were very few people that survived. It was often that one person from a family survived. It was rare to run into another family member that survived. Time passed by and people were listening to the stories of the survivors. Some people thought it was difficult to tell if they were telling the truth. The younger ones had more complicated reactions. The younger ones wanted to forget because it was painful. The reason the kids couldn’t forget was because it was so real they had lived through it and it hurt to see that. They felt good to be alive but guilty and unworthy. They were treated very bad so when they had to adjust to a normal life it was hard for them.
I think that survival was all that every prisoner thought about. I think that Elie has grown stronger when it comes to surviving. At first he was innocent because he was new to this devastating move. He now has a killer instinct on life, because he realizes that he must do what has to be done to stay alive. Elie’s father is the only family that he can go to. I think that they keep each other alive. They still manage to look out for one another. His father always gives up his ration for Elie.
The victims were an estimated 3,000,000 Jews from Poland, 900,000 from the Ukraine, 450,000 from Hungary, 300,000 from Romania and many more. The Nazis called it the Final Solution. Jews died of sicknesses like tuberculosis and diseases caused by the bad conditions of the camps. The Final Solution was enforced by a variety of methods. Some Jews were literally worked to death. Thousands of Jews were rounded up and murdered in mass shootings, which went for hours, and sometimes even days.
Half or more of the Jews who died in the Holocaust were choked to death by the fumes released by crystals in the gas chambers of the extermination camps. Some died of starvation. Some froze to death in the unheated ghettos. Holocaust deniers often call themselves “revisionists.” I thought that this book was very interesting because it tells you about the “deniers” and who they really are.
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