Night by Elie Wiesel translated by Marion Wiesel

Night -- Eli Wiesel

The Symbolism of the Title Night

Eli Wiesel uses the symbolism of night primarily as a metaphor for the depths of darkness that he and the other Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust experienced during World War Two. The title symbolizes the plight of Elie and the Jews - their pain, their horror, and their suffering. It is equally likely that Wiesel considered the metaphor also to apply to the darkness in his soul that his circumstances force him to confront: namely, his abandonment of his father at the end of his life. Likewise, the titles of Wiesel's two subsequent companion works, Dawn and Day can apply both to the gradual re-emergence of the Jewish people and the State of Israel as well as to the eventual renewal of the author's humanity decades after his experiences during the Holocaust.

The Plight of the European Jews During World War II

At first, many Hungarian Jews (including the protagonist's father) welcomed the isolation of the Jewish population because they viewed it as a liberation from the blatant anti-Semitism that they experienced in World War II Hungary, particularly after its 1940 annexation by Germany. Only in the darkness of the times and circumstances could the violation of rights, the suspension of civil liberties, the indignities of forced wearing of Jewish insignia, and the forced collection into ghettos be considered positively, but the author describes that being exactly the case when the protagonist's father first appraises the situation:

"We even thought ourselves rather well off; we were entirely self-contained. A

little Jewish republic ... We appointed a Jewish Council, a Jewish police, an office

for social assistance, a labor committee, a hygiene department -- a whole government machinery. Everyone marveled at it. We should no longer have before our eyes those hostile faces, those hate-laden stares" (Wiesel, 9).

By far, the darkest development in the life of the author was his gradual emotional and psychological distancing that he experienced with regard to his aged father. The author is tormented by the knowledge (and memory) that he began to wish his for his father's death to relieve himself of the burden of caring for and protecting him. The author represents this through the character of Rabbi Eliahou's son who purposely allows his elderly father to fall behind him on their last death march from Auschwitz to Buchenwald in the freezing snow, knowing that the consequence will be his death for failing to keep up with the group on the forced march.

The author eventually stopped responding to his father's calls and from reacting when other prisoners beat him for soiling their bunks. Ultimately, his heart had become completely dark and unable even to mourn his father's death only weeks before liberation of the camp. Describing his reaction to father's death, he writes: