Blog Post #1 - Vincent P.

Elie Wiesel’s Night makes me feel very sympathetic for Elie, but also very hopeful that Elies ability to have faith in what he believes, even though other people don’t, will bring him and his father out of the terrible situation they are in. Night is very fast paced but when there is a large change in Elies surroundings he slows down to give the reader an amazing idea of where he is, even in relation to other people. These pauses to smell the roses which Elie uses to go in depth on his surroundings really help the reader more accurately imagine and feel what Elie is going through and feel his hope to survive. The feeling that Elie is fighting time to slow down so he never reaches the end and to just get it over with sooner rather than later is emphasized by Elie’s diction choices; Elie chooses words that are very direct about how he feels at any given time, this lack of braud words helps to answer any questions there would be about his feelings before they are asked.

The way the Jews continue to keep to their system is what I believe helped them, those who did, survive the Holocaust: “There was still some food left. But we never ate enough to satisfy our hunger. Our principle was to economize, to save for tomorrow. Tomorrow could be worse yet” (Wiesel 23). Their ability to stick to their principles during a time like that is how the Jewish people are always so successful wherever they may go. Also, it is why they didn’t go mad on the train and elsewhere, because they stuck to what they know.

On the train the Jews in the compartment with Elie hit a turning point when they lost their faith in eachother and the way that Wiesel wrote that part the shift was subtle but very strong once it became something I was looking for: “It was as though madness had infected all of us… ‘Look at the fire! Look at the flames! Flames everywhere…” (Wiesel 26). This has two powerful meanings, the madness was the Jews losing faith and the fire was where their actions began to change. The flames themselves have two meanings, the loss of faith consuming them, and the gas chambers with flaming chimneys at Auschwitz. Not believing in the fire symbolizes the Jews lack of believing Moishe that the Germans are planning something terrible, also it symbolizes the Jews loss of faith in eachother in that they beat, bound and gagged a woman who was warning them of Auschwitz and the terrors that would take place there. However, the P.O.V. of Elie the actions taken by the other Jews in the car seemed acceptable and it seemed that Mrs. Schachter was going mad.