Night Analysis

Night is used throughout the book to symbolize death, darkness of the soul, and loss of faith. As an image, it comes up repeatedly. Even when the scene is literally set during the day, night may be...

Unlike fictional literature where authors can create or select a perfect setting for their story to unfold, Elie Wiesel recounts the setting of a portion of his lifetime. During the course of his s...

The story is told from the first-person view of Elie Wiesel who writes and reflects on his experiences as a 15- and 16-year-old during World War II. Though written around ten years after his li...

This is not your typical coming-of-age story, which generally deals with a young person’s introduction to independence, love, sex, and possibly death (but usually not their own) and often ends on...

Wiesel’s tone, as you might expect in a book about Nazi concentration camps, is serious and somber. He makes no attempt to lighten the mood with jokes—there wasn’t really much happiness in th...

The phrase "it's beyond words" gets thrown around a lot to describe, in only a general sense, something that is just really… really hard to describe. You may have heard this said before. (Sadly,...

The title refers to the consistent night metaphor Elie Wiesel employs throughout the book. "Night" refers to the darkness of life, mind, and soul experienced by all who suffered in Nazi concentrati...

Because Night is nonfiction memoir, it does not fit the classic plot analysis. Instead, it moves from moment to moment in an increasing downward trajectory until Eliezer’s father dies. Then E...

Because Night is nonfiction memoir, it does not fit into one of Booker’s Basic Plots.

Because Night is nonfiction memoir, it does not fit into the structure of a Three Act plot.

The first version of Night was much longer and started with the following line: "In the beginning there was faith—which is childish; trust—which is vain; and illusion—which is dangerous." Pre...

There is very little sex in this book, and lots and lots of death. There are two or three mentions of sex, but none of them are all that explicit or sexy. First, in the train on the way to Auschwit...

Adolf Hitler (throughout)Dr. Josef Mengele (5.55-59)—Dr. Mengele has come to represent the horrors and evils of Nazi medicine and experimentation in the concentration camps. It was his job to "se...