Night Essay

“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.” (Terry Pratchett, “Reaper Man”) Light is associated with warmth and happiness, because light comes from the sun and the sun makes us happy. Darkness on the other hand, is recognized as cold and scary, because as Prachett says, darkness has always gotten to a situation before the light has. In the story “Night,” by Elie Wiesel, a young boy who portrays the author finds the darkness of the Holocaust has engulfed him whilst in multiple concentration camps in 1944. The title “Night” is a fitting choice for this book because it was such a dark time in both the Elie’s life and the history of the world. The title also portrays both the physical and figurative darkness of the unknown, and alludes to the author’s knowing that there was no escape from the blackness of being afraid for his life.

“By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple” (1). This simple quote shows how Elie was so passionate about his religion at the beginning of the book, and is also one of the first times Wiesel uses the word “night”. This is relevant because when he says “night”, he’s describing how he wept over the burning of the synagogue. Towards the end though, he says that he didn’t even cry when his father died, because he, “…was out of tears…” (112). Wiesel is being ironic here because he used to have an abundance of love for an inanimate synagogue, though towards the end, he was so numb to his emotions that even when he had only one family member left, he couldn’t be sad about it because he needed to focus on his survival. Moshie the Beadle also said, “The Fascists attack Jewish stores, synagogues. The situation is becoming very serious...” (9). Not only was it an emotionally dark time for Elie, but it was also dark for many other people, because shops were being burned not because the owners did anything wrong, but because they were Jewish. The title “Night” is furthermore fitting because it demonstrates both the physical and metaphorical obscurity of the Jewish prisoners’ inability to see that they were being led to their death. When Wiesel says, “Confidence soared. Suddenly we felt free of the previous nights' terror. We gave thanks to God” (26), he’s showing how they were “in the dark” in being that they were praising God for saving them, when they didn’t know what was ahead of them. There were also times where they were in the dark literally and figuratively. For example, towards the beginning of the book, a woman screams, “‘Look! Look at this fire! This terrible fire! Have mercy on me!’ Some pressed against the bars to see. There was nothing. Only the darkness of night” (25). This is demonstrating how a woman has an epiphany that she’s seeing fire, but it’s really bodies being burned in the camps that she can somehow see, although they haven’t arrived yet. To the cattle car riders, it’s completely dark, and they don’t see anything. This is an example of dramatic irony because the readers know that the prisoners are riding to their death, but they’re literally and symbolically in the dark and don’t know where they’re going. Elie was also trying to escape from the darkness of being afraid for his and, in addition, his father’s life. When his father was almost looted and thrown off the train car, Elie says he,“…threw myself on [my father’s] body. He was cold. I slapped him. I rubbed his hands, crying: ‘Father! Father! Wake up. They're going to throw you outside...’ His body remained inert. 
The two "gravediggers" had grabbed me by the neck: ‘Leave him alone. Can't you see that he's dead?’
’No!’ I yelled. ‘He's not dead! Not yet!’
And I started to hit him harder and harder. At last, my father half-opened his eyes. They were glassy. He was breathing faintly. ‘You see,’ I cried. The two men went away” (99). This shows how Elie was afraid that he would be left alone when they were so close to surviving together. Elie tries to save his father again by giving him his rations of soup and bread when is father is diagnosed with dysentery, which is an “…intestinal inflammation, especially in the colon, that can lead to severe diarrhea with mucus or blood in the feces. Patients typically experience mild to severe abdominal pain or stomach cramps. In some cases, untreated dysentery can be life-threatening, especially if the infected person cannot replace lost fluids fast enough.” (Medical News Today) When he tells a different doctor of his dilemma, the doctor replied “‘The doctor cannot do anything more for him. And neither can you. Listen to me, kid. Don't forget that you are in a concentration camp. In this place, it is every man for himself, and you cannot think of others. Not even your father. In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone. Let me give you good advice: stop giving your ration of bread and soup to your old father. You cannot help him anymore. And you are hurting yourself. In fact, you should be getting his rations...’” (110). This opens an eye for Elie, “… but only for a fraction of a second and it left him feeling guilty…” (110). Elie feels guilty because his father cannot be helped and he knows this, but he continuously tries to help him because he feels it would be inhumane to not. This is ironic because he doesn’t want to be cruel to his father, yet the men in the concentration camps are being nothing but punishing and merciless to them. In the book “Night”, Elie Wiesel is scared to death of the darkness that surrounds him symbolically and literally. The concept of being afraid of the unknown is actually very common in society today. Elie was, for example, afraid of dying in the concentration camp and leaving his father to fend for himself. Something more common today would be a sick relative in the hospital that someone is afraid of losing. The fact that they don’t know how much time they have left with that person is scary, and they’re afraid of how they’re going to cope when their loved one is gone, like Elie had to when his father died. The references to the word “night” within the book affect the readers understanding of the theme of darkness, because they too could easily be in the dark about something. Elie Wiesel is trying to get his readers to understand that although most all readers did not go through the Holocaust like he did, they can still relate to the theme of darkness, because it’s all around and unfortunately unavoidable. Although we’d like to believe that we could escape darkness, it is everywhere and skulks its way into every person’s life.

Medical News Today, . N.p.. Web. 18 Dec 2013. .

Wiesel, Elie. N.p.. Web. 18 Dec 2013.