Fire Symbolism In Night By Elie Wiesel

In chapter 3 of Night, Wiesel’s use of fire symbolizes death and destruction, and helps convey the main idea that the lives of the Jews have been altered by the war. When the train finally arrives at the concentration camp, all of the Jews on the train begin to worry for the safety of their families. The German men start to shout and beat people with sticks as they depart the train. Wiesel writes, “In front of us, those flames. In the air, the smell of burning flesh. It must have been around midnight. We had arrived. In Birkenau” (28). In this quote the flames symbolize imminent death and a change in his life because the author directly relates the flames that he sees to the smell of burning flesh. This correlation provides the reader with