Alex+R.+&+Brittney+R.

= = =**Night **= By: Elie Wiesel
 * Brittney Reyes and Alex Robibero **



= = = = =Character List: =

 - __Eliezer:__ narrator, devoted to his father despite the hardships they go through together, faithful to god, represents hundreds of thousands of Jewish teens.

- __Eliezer's Father:__ named Chlomo, respected by his community, there is a strong bond between him and his son.

- __Moshe the Beadle:__ Eliezer's teacher, poor, trys to warn the Jews of what the Nazi's are doing.

- __Madame Schachter:__ foreshadows what is to come, sees the 'fire', is thought to be a mad woman.

- __Juliek:__ young musician, Eliezer met him in Auschwitz, plays violin.

- __Dr. Josef Megele:__ cruel doctor, known as "the angel of death", performed horrible surgeries and experiments, and sent countless Jews to the gas chambers.

- __Rabbi Eliahou:__ abandoned by his son.

- __Franek:__ Eliezer's foreman at Buna.

- __Idek:__ Eliezer's kapo, often beats Eliezer when outraged.

=Themes: =

**Struggle to Maintain Faith:**

At the beginning Eliezer's faith is absolute and unconditional. He grew up believing everything reflects god and thinks that since god is so good, everything else must be too. Going through the holocaust broke his faith due to the evil of it as a whole and the cruelness and selfishness of the people he sees there. Eliezer thinks that if this is how people truly are there must be an evil, cruel god, or none at all. He begins to question the idea of faith in god in general. Through it all, he comes out in the end still holding faith in the god he so worshiped before the holocaust.

**Cruelty and Inhumane Treatment:**

Everything Eliezer witnesses in the concentration camps shows him how cruel people really can be. "Cruelty breeds cruelty." People react in the same way they are treated. Family bonds are forgotten and it becomes a situation where it really is every man for himself. The Kapos represent this. They are prisoners taking care of prisoners, and end up aiding the Nazis and becoming just as cruel to the other Jews as the Nazis are.

=Symbols: =  **Night-**  When night time would come around, that is when misery was the worst. During the night is when the people in the concentration camps would try to escape and get to safety without the Nazis knowing. At night is when it was the most dangerous and fearful of being caught and getting killed. Anything important happened at night, such as the start of the deportation of the Jewish people, and when he first arrives at the first camp.

 **Fire-**  The fire represents the Nazi cruel power they had. The Nazis are using the fire differently then what is said to be in the bible. Madame Schachter's warning of the fire was exactly right, that they would all burn and that she could see a fire near. This is foreshadowing what was to come for the Jewish people in the near future. Furnaces and incinerators were involved in numerous deaths of Jews.

=<span style="color: #ff002a; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;"> Summary/Setting: =

T<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">his book tells the story of a Jewish teenager, Eliezer. He is talking about the absolute horrors of what he went through, how he felt, and what he saw. Throughout his memoir, we are shown the emotional, mental and physical toll the whole experience takes on him and his father. Elie tells about the different concentration camps he was sent to: Birkenau/Auschwitz, Buna, Gleiwitz, and Buchenwald, which is the last stop for Eliezer and his father. Buchenwald is where his father died, unable to go on any further. The harships and horrors Elie had experienced in the concentration camps were clearly devastating, and Elie manages to pull through keeping his faith in god and things that are good with him.

**Links:** =**<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Written interview with Eliezer Wiesel **= =**<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Interview video with Eliezer Wiesel **=

=<span style="color: #c4ff00; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 130%;">Critique: =

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 110%;">We thought this was a good book. It was sad and to read about the holocaust from a personal perspective, which really showed you what the Jews were put through. It must have been unbelievably hard for Elie to keep his faith in god and good things despite all of that, and shows that faith and family bonds and love can keep a person going through the hardest times.