Night Reflection Essay

Great Essays
Published in 1958, Elie Wiesel’s piece of literature, Night, describes his experiences surviving torturous concentration camps which eventually altered his life. Wiesel felt bound by his surroundings, but overcame his trials to create a hopeful, promising future. In the same way, today’s society becomes overwhelmed by devastating events that transform into something advantageous for their being. While these occurrences are ultimately beneficial, enduring major knee surgery and imprisonment overcame Wiesel and myself physically and emotionally.
On February 8, 2016, throughout an extremely aggressive basketball game, my life drastically changed. After three strenuous quarters, my team was losing by five points and needed a miraculous win over
…show more content…
Uncertain, the trainer performed various examinations, but concluded it was only a severe sprain; I would be playing again in a week. I was unable to apply pressure on my right side; therefore, crutches and wheelchairs were my only forms of mobilization. For the next four days, the only place I could reside was my bed, and I was unable to perform simple household activities and fulfill my daily routine independently. Although I presumed the circumstances would return to normal instantly, after my doctor’s appointment, they appeared to do the exact …show more content…
In the same way, Wiesel displays in Night how he was held back physically by the gates of the concentration camps and restraints placed on him by the guards and officers. He was not allowed to live life freely and could only go where the Germans directed him to. From the time the Germans forced the Jews into ghettos until the day of liberation, they dictated what they were allowed to do and where they could travel; Jews were forbidden to own any valuables, such as gold and jewelry, travel by train, attend church, and were forced to wear a golden star. Once arriving in the guarded camp grounds, inmates were forced to give the officers all of their clothes and possessions and follow the Germans orders. When Wiesel states “At the gate, the sign proclaimed that work meant freedom” (46), readers are enabled to see that the prisoners were not only locked in but forced to choose labor or death. Just as animals are used for humans’ entertainment in zoos, the Jewish prisoners and minorities were contained for Hitler’s

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    The German Army dehumanizes Elie Wiesel and the Jewish prisoners by depriving them of Sleep, shelter, and food. The Nazi army dehumanized the Jewish people by depriving them of physiological needs. Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and Buchenwald were the main concentration camps that Elie was sent to. Being that food, sleep, and shelter are the main sources of life, they were stolen` from everyone in the concentration camps.…

    • 657 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Books do more than just tell stories; they have the power to inspire, educate, and transform lives. For fifty-six years, Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning To Kill a Mockingbird has been an influential social commentary on prejudice in the deep south. Controversial at its inception for its progressive attitude towards civil rights, the novel has since become a staple in classrooms around the world for its message of equality and compassion. Elie Wiesel’s Night is a powerful narrative of his own experiences as a teenaged Jew during the second world war. The slim volume shocks readers with an unflinching representation of the horrors of the Holocaust and the resilience of the human spirit.…

    • 1273 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Elie Wiesel’s well-known book Night is based on his own terrifying experience with his father at the Nazi Germany concentration camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald from 1944 to 1945 in the midst of the Holocaust and the Second World War. In as little as 100 short pages of scarce and fragmented narrative, he writes about the demise of God and loss of humanity, which is reflected in the inversion of the father son relationship as Wiesel’s father’s gradually declines into a state of despair and Elie becomes his indignant caregiver. The memoir tells more than just a story: it tells of the loss of spirit, faith the horror of death and continuing to live with the horrible memoires that continue to haunt…

    • 123 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the book, Night by Elie Wiesel, published in 1956, he talks about his life during the Holocaust in Auschwitz, Germany. After the first night of the concentration camp, Wiesel woke up by getting beaten, being told to run from one barrack to another. From getting soaked in disinfectant to having wearing clothes that cover you from almost being naked and from being there for more than 3 weeks, Wiesel stood wondering it was a dream. Throughout the book Night, Wiesel expresses his feelings by using anaphora to ask rhetorical questions to show how experiencing pain, and death changed him into a different person.…

    • 398 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Someone once said, “Pain makes people change but it also makes them stronger.” In other words, one can be deeply inflicted by an event, but it can strengthen them in a way. In the book, Night, by Elie Wiesel, a thirteen year old boy named Eliezer faced many tragedies with his father, when he was captured by the Holocausts. All these gruesome events shaped Elie for the better and has made him stronger. Throughout Eliezer's capture his faith in religion, family, and his sensitivity to violence was impacted greatly.…

    • 529 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “From the Depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me” (Page 115). When Elie Wiesel, the main character of “Night,” was 16, Poland was taken over by Germany and the Holocaust began. Elie, being a jew, was taken into a concentration camp for more than one torturous year, where he faced many challenges. These numerous difficulties in the camps caused Elie to change a lot. In “Night,” Elie Wiesel is changed by the Holocaust because he lost his identity, his opinion and relationship with his father and his religion.…

    • 560 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The book Night written by Elie Wiesel was a great book describing his personal experiences in the camps, and what he had gone through like losing friends, family, and many other innocent people dying. The book “Night” gets his message across by telling his personal experiences starting from the beginning. Some examples throughout the book of what happened was when he injured his leg very bad, and wondered “Will I be able to use my leg?” (Wiesel 80). He also explained on how he was treated, including the living conditions, and the bad food he was given while living st the death camps.…

    • 577 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Elie Wiesels life changing memoir “Night” he travels the path of hate, cruelty, and silence. He then recounts his life in the concentration camps, as a young boy named Eliezer, describing his experiences that shaped him into the person he is today. Sharing with us his tragic experiences, and all the feelings he had to hold in during the horrid time of the Holocaust. For feelings were not something to be defined in the camps, in order to survive feelings were not an option. During the Holocaust Eliezer will get a new perspective on death, and is then tested in his faith with God.…

    • 925 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “One more stab to the heart, one more reason to hate. One less reason to live.(109)” Throughout Night by Elie Wiesel, Nazis show time and time again how relentless they will be with their physical and emotional abuse towards prisoners in concentration camps. Through understanding the ways Nazis dehumanize Jews and other minorities, we can see three very important steps to bringing them back into normal life: Non physically abusive treatment, giving them goals, friends, a reason to live, and a non-fluctuant lifestyle, and providing former prisoners with more diverse lifestyle choices. One of Nazi Germany’s most well known ways of dehumanizing people is by physically abusing them.…

    • 737 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Approximately 1 out of every 6 Auschwitz concentration camp prisoner was murdered, fortunately Eliezer Wiesel defeated those odds and came out of it as a survivor. The book ‘Night’ is a memoir written by holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel who paints a clear picture on his experience of being forced to leave everything that made him who he was, to coming out of the camp: Auschwitz-Birkenau, nearly on the brink of death. His book demonstrates the callousness of the Nazi party and the suffering he and his people faced day and night, never getting a break from the experimental torture, gas chambers, starvation, illnesses and death knocking at their door. Being a prisoner at Auschwitz, Wiesel 's overall identity took a turn as he lost his faith in god…

    • 1096 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Jessica R. During the Holocaust, over six million individuals died, many deaths occurred from living in the concentration camps. Within the camps, inhumane acts were performed on the Jewish people. In Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie’s identity is changing from being religious and a follower of God to not having any faith in God, by staying true to himself and his faith, by dealing with tortious acts and by feeling that God was behind all of the danger. Elie Wiesel 's Identity was always based on a connection with God, during the prison camps Wiesel always stayed true to his identity and kept God within his soul.…

    • 1106 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In the memoir, “Night”, Elie Wiesel is faced with the struggles of going into concentration camps such as Auschwitz, Buna, and others in late World War II. During the holocaust, because of the lack of modern technology, no other countries knew about what was happening to the Jewish prisoners in these camps. However, Elie Wiesel was not the only one who was struck with devastation in these times of unknown crisis. Other Holocaust victims lost faith in not just their surroundings, but in themselves as well. Due to the abominable conditions of the concentration camps, Jews were both physically and psychologically damaged.…

    • 1106 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The harsh and dreadful conditions of one’s setting or surrounding can drastically affect the way that person thinks and acts towards certain topics. Through the condensed memoir entitled Night, written by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, it is evident that Elie’s tough and emotional journey affects the person he becomes towards the end and after his exposure to the concentration camps. The novel illustrates how the numerous monstrosities Elie endures through his times at the camps change him into the person he is today. Elie explains through his in depth analysis of his experiences that horrifying conditions in the nightmarish concentration camps of the Holocaust can reach and shatter the concerns and ideals held close to a person’s heart. Throughout…

    • 1417 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The horrors that Jewish and other groups of people faced during the Holocaust were tragic. Ihe book Night, by Elie Wiesel follows his struggle through life as a Jew in this time and place. His whole world was flipped around when Germans invaded his home, and through the tragic events he witnessed, he watched the people around him become less and less human, going into survival mode. He managed to survive, and wrote this book about what he experienced. Some of the atrocities that the Jewish people faced were living in horrible conditions, being starved and beaten, or being tortured and executed.…

    • 957 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Night: by Elie Wiesel I chose to do a book report on this book called: “Night” written by Eliezer Wiesel. The author, Eliezer Wiesel is an actual survivor of the Holocaust, and he endured the suffering of living in the Auschwitz labour camps. This book is a first hand memoir of the horrors and painful experiences Elie Wiesel had endured when he was only fifteen years old. Throughout the book, Elie describes his struggle to keep his faith in God, as he is unable to believe that a loving God could allow horrible things happen to his “chosen” people. The title of the book, “Night” , refers to the the darkness and silence that Elie went through as a teenager living in a concentration camp.…

    • 969 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays