Title: Night (1982)
Author: Elie Wiesel
Setting: Concentration camps throughout Germany during WWII
Theme: The silence and ignorance of mankind towards suffering and cruelty
Plot Synopsis: Elie goes through many hardships as a prisoner during WWII by the Nazis. They are starved and beat at times and this goes on for awhile until the allies find them.
Characters:
Elie Wiesel: A survivor of the Holocaust who lives through the worst concentration camps and times of his time.
Symbols, Allusions, Distinguishing characteristics:
The Night – The whole time Elie was at the concentration camps it felt like one long night played out many times in front of him. The cruelty kept going on and on and there wasn’t anyone around to save them.
Quotation:
“Where is God? Where is He?” someone behind me asked. ..
For more than half an hour [the child in the noose] stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed.
Behind me, I heard the same man asking:
“Where is God now?”
And I heard a voice within me answer him:
“Where is He? Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows. . . “
For more than half an hour [the child in the noose] stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed.
Behind me, I heard the same man asking:
“Where is God now?”
And I heard a voice within me answer him:
“Where is He? Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows. . . “
Making School Easier 