Night Theme Essay
Night
The book night by Elie Weisel has many different themes that are apparent throughout the novel. Theme is the topic or central idea of a story. Many different themes are expressed in the book while following a young boy and his father struggle through the Holocaust. Three of the main themes are Religion, dehumanization, and mortality. One of the first themes you encounter is religion. Religion was the main cause of the holocaust with the Germans exterminating all the people of the Jewish religion. At the beginning of the story Elie is a young boy who is very religious and is studying the cabala. “One day I asked my father to find me a master to guide me in my studies of the cabala.” This shows how religious he is when he father then tells him he is too young to begin his studies. Later in the story when the Jews were in the barracks they began to wonder about god. “God? What god, there is no god for if there was he would not let this keep happening.” They began to stop believing in god because they didn’t believe he could ever let something so horrible happen which leads to the next theme. One of the other themes is dehumanization, where people are treated like animals or worse which is exactly what happened to the Jews. The starvation and fatigue caused people to go insane. “He leapt on me like a wild animal…” The people went crazy and began to lose their humanity. The Germans did not offer the dead proper burials they just sent the body to the crematoria when at camp but if they were marching they would dig mass graves or leave them where they lay. “Around me everything was dancing a dance of death…I was walking in a cemetery among stiffened corpses.” This gives evidence that the dead were left out for all to see as a reminder of the reality that they were all prisoners. Next is the struggle between life and death, mortality. The core of the holocaust for the Jews was the constant struggle to try and live the next day or try to pass selection. Many
The book night by Elie Weisel has many different themes that are apparent throughout the novel. Theme is the topic or central idea of a story. Many different themes are expressed in the book while following a young boy and his father struggle through the Holocaust. Three of the main themes are Religion, dehumanization, and mortality. One of the first themes you encounter is religion. Religion was the main cause of the holocaust with the Germans exterminating all the people of the Jewish religion. At the beginning of the story Elie is a young boy who is very religious and is studying the cabala. “One day I asked my father to find me a master to guide me in my studies of the cabala.” This shows how religious he is when he father then tells him he is too young to begin his studies. Later in the story when the Jews were in the barracks they began to wonder about god. “God? What god, there is no god for if there was he would not let this keep happening.” They began to stop believing in god because they didn’t believe he could ever let something so horrible happen which leads to the next theme. One of the other themes is dehumanization, where people are treated like animals or worse which is exactly what happened to the Jews. The starvation and fatigue caused people to go insane. “He leapt on me like a wild animal…” The people went crazy and began to lose their humanity. The Germans did not offer the dead proper burials they just sent the body to the crematoria when at camp but if they were marching they would dig mass graves or leave them where they lay. “Around me everything was dancing a dance of death…I was walking in a cemetery among stiffened corpses.” This gives evidence that the dead were left out for all to see as a reminder of the reality that they were all prisoners. Next is the struggle between life and death, mortality. The core of the holocaust for the Jews was the constant struggle to try and live the next day or try to pass selection. Many