Throughout Elie Wiesel’s biographical account, Night, Eliezer is confronted with death in many forms. His first recollection of such in the text occurs when he and his family are moved with other Jews from the first ghetto to a smaller one. Elie recognizes this event and the interactions with the Hungarian police as the beginning of his suffering and hatred. “They were the first faces of hell and death,” Elie explains (19). Although there...
Throughout Elie Wiesel’s biographical account, Night, Eliezer is confronted with death in many forms. His first recollection of such in the text occurs when he and his family are moved with other Jews from the first ghetto to a smaller one. Elie recognizes this event and the interactions with the Hungarian police as the beginning of his suffering and hatred. “They were the first faces of hell and death,” Elie explains (19). Although there is no literal dead body in front of him, Elie uses death as a descriptor, effectively marking all events within the Holocaust-–the deaths of freedom, humanity, religion, etc. Later on, when he arrives at the first camp of his incarceration, Elie encounters literal death. He sees a truck unloading and is given a horrific introduction to human death: “Yes, I did see this with my own eyes . . . children thrown into the flames” (32). As the text continues, he sees and hears of many other deaths, but the symbolic one in the faces of the Hungarian police and the bodies of children at the camp are the initial encounters.
Wiesel, Elie. 'Night.' Trans. Marion Wiesel. New York: Hill and Wang, 2006. Book.
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