Book Review: Night by Elie Wiesel

Introduction

Elie Wiesel’s Night, first published in 1956 in Yiddish and later in English in 1960, is a devastating yet essential memoir of survival and loss during the Holocaust. Wiesel was only 15 years old when he and his family were deported from their home in Sighet, Transylvania, to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Told in stark, unflinching prose, Night documents his journey through Auschwitz, Buna, and Buchenwald — and the gradual destruction of his faith, his family, and his innocence. More than a historical record, Night is a moral and spiritual testimony, bearing witness to humanity’s capacity for cruelty and the enduring struggle to find meaning after unimaginable suffering.

Plot Summary

The memoir begins in Sighet, a small Jewish community in Transylvania, where young Elie Wiesel lives with his family. Deeply religious, he studies the Talmud and dreams of learning Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah) under the guidance of Moshe the Beadle.

When Moshe is deported with other foreign Jews, he escapes and returns to warn the townspeople that the Nazis are murdering Jews en masse. No one believes him — a tragic foreshadowing of what’s to come.

In 1944, the Nazis occupy Hungary, and Elie’s family is forced into ghettos before being deported to Auschwitz. Upon arrival, Wiesel and his father are separated from his mother and sister, whom he never sees again. The horrific reality of the camps shatters his faith and humanity almost immediately.

Elie witnesses the burning of children, the brutal beatings of prisoners, and the constant threat of death. In Auschwitz and later in Buna, he struggles to survive amid starvation, forced labor, and unrelenting cruelty. He and his father cling to one another for strength, but Elie’s faith in God deteriorates as he watches atrocities unfold unchecked.

Eventually, as the Nazis evacuate Auschwitz near the war’s end, Elie and his father endure a death march to Buchenwald. Weakened and ill, his father dies just before liberation. When the camp is finally freed by American forces, Elie looks at himself in a mirror and sees a corpse staring back — a haunting symbol of his spiritual and emotional death.

Themes

1. Faith and Doubt

One of the most powerful themes in Night is Wiesel’s struggle with faith. He begins as a devout believer, but the horrors he witnesses lead him to question — even rage against — God. The silence of the divine in the face of evil becomes the memoir’s central spiritual conflict.

2. Dehumanization

The Nazis systematically strip prisoners of their names, identities, and dignity. Tattooed numbers replace names; compassion becomes a liability. Wiesel’s narrative exposes how cruelty can erase humanity — not only in victims but also in those forced to survive by shutting off empathy.

3. Father-Son Relationships

The bond between Elie and his father, Shlomo, anchors the story. Their relationship evolves from mutual dependence to heartbreaking reversal as Elie becomes his father’s caretaker. The memoir’s emotional core lies in Elie’s guilt — for feeling anger, exhaustion, and even relief when his father dies.

4. The Loss of Innocence

The young Elie who leaves Sighet is replaced by someone hollowed by trauma. The recurring image of night symbolizes both physical darkness and spiritual despair.

5. The Silence of God and Humanity

Wiesel presents silence as both divine and human — God’s silence in the face of evil mirrors the world’s silence as millions perish. The title Night encapsulates this moral and spiritual darkness.

Character Analysis

Eliezer (Elie Wiesel)

The narrator and author, Elie is both a witness and survivor. His transformation — from faith to despair, from child to hollowed adult — reflects the human cost of genocide. His testimony is both personal and universal.

Shlomo (Elie’s father)

A respected figure in Sighet who becomes increasingly frail in the camps. His decline and death symbolize the destruction of family and faith. His presence gives Elie purpose to survive, even as his death represents unbearable loss.

Moshe the Beadle

A prophetic figure whose ignored warnings symbolize the world’s failure to believe the unimaginable. His early story mirrors the Jewish community’s disbelief and denial.

The Nazi Guards and Camp Officials

Dehumanized in their cruelty, they embody systemic evil. Wiesel rarely names them, emphasizing how the machinery of oppression reduces individuals into instruments of horror.

Style and Structure

Wiesel’s prose is sparse, direct, and poetic. His language mirrors the emotional numbness of trauma — stripped of ornamentation, yet searing in its simplicity. The memoir’s brevity enhances its impact; every sentence carries moral weight.

The title itself, Night, functions as a metaphor for darkness, death, and despair — but also the faint hope of dawn.

Symbolism

• Night: Represents the absence of light, faith, and hope — the moral and spiritual void of the Holocaust.
• Fire: Symbolizes both physical destruction and the perverse inversion of divine power (e.g., the crematoria as hell on earth).
• Silence: Reflects the silence of God, the indifference of bystanders, and the internal numbness of victims.
• The Mirror Scene: At the end, Elie’s reflection reveals the death of his former self — the ultimate symbol of dehumanization and survival at terrible cost.

Why Night Still Matters

Night is more than a Holocaust memoir — it is a warning to future generations. Wiesel’s testimony insists on remembrance: to forget would be to allow history to repeat itself.

In an age where misinformation and hatred persist, Night reminds us that moral vigilance and empathy are essential human duties. Its haunting simplicity ensures that the horror it describes will never be abstracted or forgotten.

Homework Questions & Answers

Q1: Why is the book titled Night?
A1: The title symbolizes spiritual and physical darkness — the night of the soul, faith, and humanity. It reflects both the literal and metaphorical darkness of the Holocaust experience.

Q2: How does Elie’s faith change throughout the memoir?
A2: Elie begins as deeply religious but loses faith as he witnesses brutality and injustice. By the end, he no longer prays, feeling abandoned by God — though his writing later becomes an act of moral testimony rather than faith.

Q3: What role does Elie’s father play in his survival?
A3: His father gives him purpose to live. Caring for him provides emotional strength, though it also becomes a source of guilt and despair as his father weakens.

Q4: How does Wiesel use imagery to convey trauma?
A4: Through stark, sensory descriptions — the smell of burning flesh, the sound of marching — Wiesel makes the unimaginable tangible, ensuring readers confront the reality of atrocity.

Q5: What is the significance of the ending scene?
A5: The mirror scene symbolizes the death of Elie’s innocence and the permanent scars left by his experiences. The “corpse” reflects both literal survival and the spiritual death of his former self.

Conclusion

Night stands as one of the most important moral documents of the 20th century. Elie Wiesel’s account of survival amid humanity’s darkest moment is both a personal confession and a universal warning.

Through its raw honesty and moral clarity, the book forces readers to confront evil — not as a distant historical event, but as a potential within human nature itself.

Night endures because it transforms pain into purpose, silence into witness, and memory into a plea for compassion.