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What does it take to survive? Brains? Bronze? Will? All three? The Novel Night by Elie Wiesel is an autobiography that recounts his experiences in the holocaust. Elie was lucky and survived to tell the tale, however, many others did not. In the novel one of the many themes I found is that survival is a never-ending struggle in life and to live you must keep fighting.
To start with the characters in Night are perfect examples of this theme of survival.
Some of them live some of them die and it was all based on their will to survive.
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An example of this is where Elie thinks the following, ¨God knows what I would have given to sleep a few moments. But deep inside I knew that to sleep meant to die, and something in me rebelled against that death,” (89). This quote shows that Elie has maintained his will to keep fighting and to survive. Another example is when Meir Katz says, “why don’t they just shoot us now?” (103) This shows he has given up and doesn’t care what happens from that point on, he has lost his will to survive. My last example is when Elie is trying to get his father to keep fighting, “the discussion continued for some time. I knew that I was no longer arguing with him but with death itself, with death he had already chosen,” (105). Elie's father has already given up on living, Elie is trying to fight for his father.
He’s holding on since his father no longer can. Therefore the characters in Night clearly show that survival is very important theme in this Novel.
Secondly, Night is a story recounting the horrors of the Holocaust throughout the novel you read of the German Nazis breaking the will to survive in so many people's lives this is shown in the plot constantly.The first example I chose was when Elie spends his first night in the camp, “Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky,” (34). This is the beginning of what would break most people's will. Elie luckily didn't but he clearly was pushed closer to the edge by these sites. My second example is when Elie's father is being beaten, “And he began beating him with an iron bar. At first, my father simply doubled over under the blows, but then he seemed to break in half like an old tree struck by lightning,” (54). The only reason anyone would ever be beaten like that would be too break their will. his father didn't make it, in the end, things like this are what broke his will to survive. My last example is when Idek is lashing Elie is split into two quotes, “I no longer feel anything except the Lash the Whip,” and, “it took his time between lashes only the first really hurt,” (57). Idek is trying to break Elie but his will to live is strong enough to get through this. Therefore all the evidence provided clearly shows that survival is a never-ending struggle and is a key component in the plot.
Lastly In Night there are many literary devices these are devices are often shown to explain or better understand how things felt or looked. My first example is, “When at last a grayish light appeared in the horizon it revealed tangle of human shapes, head sucking deeply between their shoulders, crouching, piled on top of the other, like a cemetery covered with snow,” (98). The imagery here helps you imagine all of the broken people how they looked and what it would have been like to have witnessed the complete loss of will in so many people around you.
My second example is, “They pointed their fingers, the way one might choose cattle or merchandise,” (49). Elie comparing them to cattle or objects is him realizing that they don’t want them to feel human they want them to feel like nothing that breaks will faster than anything. My last example is, “I was nothing but ashes now, but I found myself to be stronger than this Almighty to whom my life I have been bound for so long,” (68). This quote shows that Elie feels he is nothing he says he is ashes, however, he still has his will so he feels stronger than his God. Literary devices are extremely important in this novel to portray the theme.
Overall the theme of survival is a never-ending struggle and taking will to survive is clearly shown in Night the characters have to fight constantly just to keep their will alive, and the plot demands that they be punished constantly and broken by all the Nazis and just horrible people there encounter, and the literary devices mostly thought by the author himself just explain even more so how they felt and how tragic things were how much their will was being broken and how much it took to survive.
Elie Wiesel's "Night" recounts personal experience of the Holocaust and what it took to survive. (2024, Feb 04). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/elie-wiesels-night-recounts-personal-experience-of-the-holocaust-and-what-it-took-to-survive-essay
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