Night

1
Night

• Elie Wiesel

2
Elie Wiesels Childhood

• Born September 30, 1928 in Sighet, Romania.
• Son of father Shlomo and mother Sara.
• He was interested in becoming a rabbi during his
  youth, and was fascinated by sacred texts.
• With the arrival of the Nazis in 1944, he was
  deported to Auschwitz.

3
Historical Context

• Germany was unstable and chaotic after WWI.
• The German economy was in shambles, which lead to
  the rise of National Socialist German Workers
  Party, or Nazis. Adolf Hitler was their leader.
  
• Hitler wrote Mein Kampf while in prison blaming
  the Jews for all of the worlds evils.

4
Concentration Camps

• Were used to imprison all opponents to the Nazis
  Jews and other ethnic/racial hated groups.
• Were used to carry out the Final Solution, or
  systematic extermination of all Jews.
• Medical experiments were performed on prisoners.
• Prisoners were used as slave labor.

5
(No Transcript)
6
Literary Context

• Wiesels writing style is stark and direct,
  because he was influenced by French minimalists.
• Wiesel addresses moral issues he explores the
  meaning of life in a society without God, and he
  tries to reconstruct a hope in humanity.
• Although humans are trapped in an absurd world,
  people are responsible for the moral choices they
  make.

7
Setting and Point of View

• The ghettos of Sighet
• Birkenau-Auschwitz
• Buna
• Buchenwald

• Told from the point of view of a 15 year old
  teenager.
• Faces the struggles of an adult to save his own
  life and that of his father.

8
Characters

• Elie Wiesel
• Chlomo Wiesel
• Moche the Beadle
• Madame Schachter
• Akibe Drumer
• Rabbi Eliahou
• Juliek

9
Themes

• Emotional Death
• Struggle to maintain Faith
• Dignity in the face of inhuman cruelty
• Self preservation versus family commitment

10
Questions

• What is the Holocaust and what events lead up to
  it?
• How does Elie Wiesel change/stay the same
  throughout the novel?
• How has reading this novel impacted your own
  life?