The Destructive Effects Of Silence In Elie Wiesel's Night

In “Night” by Elie Wiesel he uses the word silence to show and describe people's loneliness and loss of hope. Being silent is what keeps you alive in the concentration camps it is what gets the people through and not being tortured. Throughout the book there are a numerous amount of times Elie Wiesel uses the word silence. One time where Elie Wiesel uses Silence is when he says, “he must have mistaken my silence for defiance. ”(53)

Moishe spoke out to warn everybody about the Germans and nobody believed him. According to Wiesel “Without any passion or haste, they shot their prisoners, who were forced to approach the trench one by one and offer their necks” (6). The quote expresses what Moishe saw when he was taken away from the Hungarian police and what they ordered him and the rest of the deportees to

In the novel “Night”, by Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor suggests that when humans are faced with protecting their own mortality, they abandon their morals and values. This can be seen in both the Jewish and German people. The German’s are inhumanely cruel to protect their own jobs and safely by obeying government commands. The Jewish captives lost their morals as they fight to survive the concentration camps. Elie Wiesel encountered many obstacles that made many of his ideals changed drastically for Wiesel which was his loss in humanity throughout the book he explains the many ways he does not see people as people anymore. He also explains how all of his natural human rights were no more during the time in the Holocaust. He had to find a sense of self because he could have easily fallen apart. He could not have done anything different, he knew it was going to end poorly. Silence is a very important and prominent theme in this book as silence represents many key symbols such as. God’s silence: Eliezar questions God’s faith many times throughout this book and wonders how he could just sit there and be silent while people are mass murdering people.

As Elie gets used to his new life in such a hellish state, he realizes that the trusting and faithful child that he once had been had been taken away along with his family and all else that he had ever known. While so many others around him still implore the God of their past to bring them through their suffering, Wiesel reveals to the reader that although he still believes that there is a God, he no longer sees Him as a just and compassionate leader but a cruel and testing spectator.

But the Jews didn’t listen. This quote demonstrates how the Jews responded to Moishe’s warning, “They think I’m mad, he whispered, and tears, like drops of wax, flowed from his eyes.” (Wiesel 7). Moishe experienced much trauma when the Germans invaded his small town, Sighet. He saw Hungarian transport trucks taking all of his fellow Jews away into the land of Poland.

“Why do you pray? He asked after a moment. Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?” (Pg.5). Moishe the Beadle asked Elie Wiesel some questions that Elies did not know how to answered, he prayed everyday, he was alive but he didn't know why, he breathe and he didn't know why neither. But the real answer only Elie could find it within himself. The book is based on real-life fact about how the Germans or best known as Nazis came and slave all the Jews, they took away their freedom and their happiness. And this tell book the the story of the holocaust in the point of view of a person named Elie Wiesel. Elements of dark and light can change your faith, how you believe and in what do you believe, but how can it be changed

The beginning of the Holocaust seems hopeful for Elie and his family, even though the Hurgarian police take away the foreign Jews that live in Sighet, Elie’s hometown, in cattle cars. Although nobody knows exactly what happens to them, the Jews in Sighet hear that they are in Galicia, working, and “content with their fate” (Wiesel 6). But that is not so, for Moishe, a

One of the reasons for why the Jews of Sighet are being so ignorant is because they think no human can commit such an inhumane act. Committing one murder is considered to be inhumane, imagine the casualties of about 11 million people... The Holocaust made people realize how inhumane people can be to gain something, which shows the importance of the theme inhumanity. This shows how the conflict relates to the theme of inhumanity. "Moishe was not the same. The joy in his eyes was gone. He no longer sang. He no longer mentioned either God or Kabbalah." (7), this shows how the conflict also relates to the theme of loss of innocence. After experiencing terrible incidents in Gestapo, Moishe the Beadle had become quieter and had lost his innocence. Moishe experienced and observed many inhumane acts that took place in the concentration camps. This is shown in the following quote, "Without passion or haste, they shot their prisoners, who were forced to approach the trench one by one and offer their necks. Infants were tossed into the air and used as targets for the machine guns." (6) Experiencing this could have a lot of effect to a person mentally, which could lead to the loss of

As the famous journalist Iris Chang once said, “As the Nobel Laureate warned years ago, to forget a holocaust is to kill twice.” After experiencing the tragedies that occurred during the Holocaust, Eliezer Wiesel narrated “Night”. Eliezer wrote “Night” in an attempt to prevent something similar to the Holocaust from happening again, by showing the audience what the consequences are that come from becoming a bystander. Elie illustrated numerous themes by narrating the state of turmoil he was in during the Holocaust. In Night, Eliezer provided insight into what he experienced in order to teach the unaware audience about three themes; identity, silence, and faith.

During World War II, the Jewish race was one of the most persecuted of all the minorities harassed by Hitler and the Third Reich, and a day to day basis, Jews across Europe lived in constant fear, wondering if today would be their last. Especially in cities close to the expanding Nazi empire, there was no telling when their last breath would come. In the memoir, the closely knitted town of Sighet is controlled by the Germans, leaving anyone of Jewish descent to obey their commands in total fear of their personal safety. Elie Wiesel describes this genuine fear when he wakes up a close friend of his father, “‘Get up sir, get up!...You're going to be expelled from here tomorrow with your whole family, and all the rest of the Jews…’ Still half asleep he stared at me with terror-stricken eyes.”

In the memoir, Night, author Elie Wiesel portrays the dehumanization of individuals and its lasting result in a loss of faith in God. Throughout the Holocaust, Jews were doggedly treated with disrespect and inhumanity. As more cruelty was bestowed upon them, the lower their flame of hope and faith became as they began turning on each other and focused on self preservation over family and friends. The flame within them never completely died, but rather stayed kindling throughout the journey until finally it stood flickering and idle at the eventual halt of this seemingly never-ending nightmare. Elie depicts the perpetuation of violence that crops up with the Jews by teaching of the loss in belief of a higher power from devout to doubt they

The silence from the world as well as the presumed absence of God had embedded a significance in the novel that Wiesel had started to accept muteness as a standard part of his life. He no longer expected anything from anyone but impartialness and has reached the point where he has submitted to the painful realization that his God had also chosen to spectate without action to their grief. While Elie is in the midst of perceiving this unjust reality he believes he is “Terribly alone in a world without God and without man” (65). The impassiveness from what seems to be everyone, has caused to Elie to feel that he is isolated in this camp and will continue to simply be ruled by the Nazis. Wiesel isn’t sure why God has chosen to turn a deaf ear to him and the other Jews as he wants to “Pray to the God within [him] for the strength to ask Him the real questions” (3). He wants the strength to ask God these questions because know why He and the world could be so cruel as to ignore the situation of the people in the concentration camps. Their neutrality only helping the

For the mass majority of Wiesel’s tale he questioned God. The emotion associated with this part of the book is anger. Anger is an intense emotion, but it is a secondary emotion made by the combination of one or more primary emotion. Sadness and grief can lead to anger, along with helplessness and confusion. These are all emotion Wiesel felt, but he was powerless needed an outlet that wouldn’t get him killed. Who else to blame but the all righteous god Wiesel states, “Some of the men spoke of God: His mysterious ways, the sins of the Jewish people, and the redemption to come. As for me, I had ceased to pray. I concurred with Job! I was not denying His existence, but I doubted His absolute justice” (45). Ceasing to pray does not raise suspicion for most people, but Wiesel would cry while praying just because it felt right to him and spend lots of time at the synagogue. He went on a rant after a ‘officiating’ inmate said “Blessed be the Almighty…” the entire paragraph can be summed up very well in its last two sentences, “Praised be Thy Holy Name, for having chosen us to be slaughtered on Thine Altar?” (67). Wiesel believed in God’s existence there is no doubt about that. Wiesel asked question to God but God didn’t answer because he wasn’t there, that is what angered Wiesel. His questions turned into accusations to a well defended guilty party. Wiesel stated “ I was the accuser, God the accused.” (68).

In “Night” by Elie Wiesel silence gives time for him to reflect on his life and the struggles that are going on. When Wiesel is in the concentration camp he gets him time to reflect on the hardship of life and all of the terrible things such as when he say “ Not far from us, flames, huge flames, were rising from a ditch. Something was being burned there. A truck drew close and unloaded

Jewish oppression occurs expeditiously. Eliezer and his family are deported to concentration camps in 1944. Eliezer’s destiny is changed by ignoring the admonishing cries he and his family receives about what is to come. “‘Jews, listen to me! That’s all I ask of you. No money. No pity. Just listen to me!’ he kept shouting in the synagogue...Even I did not believe him.” (7) Moishe the Beadle is in the first group of Jews that the Nazis deport. They take him along with many other Jews into a forest. They are deceived into digging deep trenches, lining up, and being shot, falling into the trenches they dug with their own hands. Moishe is the only one who escapes. He returns to Sighet to warn the Jews, but they refuse to listen to him. Pleading, Moishe asks someone - anyone - to believe him. He no longer wants to live, he only wants to prepare the Jews for the impending peril. Because Eliezer and his family refuse to listen to Moishe, they end up in concentration camps. If Eliezer and his family had listened to Moishe, their stories would not have ended as they did. Another example of