Night Symbolism

Critical Analysis Essay Authors use many elements in literature to help enhance their text. These texts in literature are further strengthened because of the elements being used. There are hundreds of literary devices being used everyday, but symbolism is one of the more common ones used. Symbolism is a huge element that plenty of authors use in their text. The literary element symbolism enhances a text by showing complex definitions of items used and seen everyday, helping create emotion in a story, and building onto the theme with positive effects. Symbolism amplifies pieces of text in many ways, one of which shows different definitions of everyday items. There are many examples to be provided from the book Night. For example, fire and flames are used to symbolise death in many ways. In Chapter Two, when they are on the train full of jews, Mrs. Schächter has visions of fire and flames and freaks out. Later, the all found out the she was freaking out over the crematoria. It shows a different definition because you don’t always think death when you see fire and flames. Another example of symbolism from Night
Theme could be argued to be the biggest part of any book being read. If you understand the theme, it helps you understand the entire book. Symbolism is used to help with understanding the theme, so it contributes a great factor towards any text. In the Book Night, there is a theme being developed of inhumanity and darkness. "The days were like nights, and the nights left the dregs of their darkness in our souls"(Wiesel 100). This showed the theme of darkness and what outlook it gave Elie and the other jews on it. “From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me” (Wiesel 115). This quote is saying that Elie thinks he is a walking corpse, showing the inhumanity of the whole