![]() ![]() Faith in GodĪ huge theme throughout the piece is the evolving relationship that Wiesel has with God. Dignity, of giving life meaning and making sense of one’s place in it, dissipates in favor of survival. One of the key examples of this is when Akiba Drummer is sentenced to death and asks people to pray for him, to “say the kaddish.” Though people promise him that they will do so, they all forget to give him a dignified death, as people no longer value remembering each other. Dignity also ebbs with time in the concentration camps, as routine things that gave meaning to live are stripped away. Related to both human nature and to loyalty, dignity is also a theme that permeates the book. By the end of the book, the reader understands that countless people lost more than their lives: they were also robbed of their humanity. As comfort is substituted for violence, people in Wiesel’s world are frequently described as beasts, and their survival instincts supersede their emotions and relational ties, even when it comes to family: the most tragic example is when a young man kills his own father for a piece of bread. The breakdown of civility happens very early on, when people are first herded onto the cattle cars and some young couples begin to openly copulate with each other. Perhaps one of the most salient themes is Wiesel’s insight into human nature, his descriptions posing the reader with the question of where animal instinct ends and civility begins. The first time that “night” is made apparent is when Wiesel describes the first night in the concentration camp, saying, “never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed.” An endless night symbolizes how Weisel and his fellow prisoners experienced time, in which routine violence governs their existences, and in which day offers no respite from darkness. ![]() Though probably somewhat an obvious theme given the title, night is constant theme that appears throughout the book, mostly to symbolize the darkness into which the world has plummeted. This is evident in several moments of the book, when one prisoner asks during the hanging of the silent angel “where god is.” When silence is broken, it is often to remind the reader of moments of humanity, such as when Juliek plays Beethoven in the middle of the night, reminding the rest of the prisoners that they are intelligent human beings, not silent animals. One of the ways that silence permeates the book is the way in which God remains silent to the plight and violence against Jews. Throughout the novel, Wiesel uses both literal and figurative silence to connote the lack of voice that Jews in the concentration camps have against their captors.
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