Night is usually seen as a period of silence; cars no longer clutter the streets, restaurants have closed and people are sleeping peacefully in their beds. It seems fitting then that Elie Wiesel's Night has so much meaning wrapped up in this theme of silence. Indeed, Wiesel's personal account of the Holocaust chronicles what might be described as a "silent period" in world history (for various reasons which will be examined). This idea of ​​silence inundates Wiesel's fiction in several forms. This article will attempt to examine three specific types of silence present in Wiesel's short novel: individualistic - seen specifically through the eyes of the narrator, communitarian - as it concerns both the Jewish community and its relationship with the Nazis, and spiritual - both in the struggle of Wiesel with God and in the apparent silence of the Lord towards his followers. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The first of these is perhaps the saddest example featured in Night. Wiesel primarily struggles with what could be described as physical silence, meaning he is unable or unwilling to act physically even when he knows he should. One of the first examples occurs when Idek attacks Wiesel for no apparent reason. Wiesel tries his best to remain silent, but this is only interpreted by his attacker as a "challenge" (60). This is an example of how Wiesel already seems so overwhelmed by the oppression of his surroundings that he doesn't even consider fighting back. His only reaction is to remain docile and hope that the unprovoked anger subsides. Yet one cannot help but wonder what might have happened if Wiesel had not remained silent. Perhaps even sadder is when the same man attacks Wiesel's father. Instead of rushing to her rescue, Wiesel even gets angry at his father for "not knowing how to avoid the Idek epidemic" (62). Wiesel soon became silent both in his obedience to his oppressors and in his loyalty to his father. In the next sentence he even acknowledges that "this is what life in the concentration camp had made of me" (62). Wiesel, who less than a year earlier was living peacefully in his adolescent bliss, now can't even defend the only person he has left to care about. This is the nature of silent suffering in Night. A third example, once again involving Idek, occurs when Wiesel sees him having sex with a young girl and accidentally bursts out laughing. Wiesel is "taken... by the throat", threatened because he won't keep quiet, and whipped twenty-five times (64-65). After waking up from the whippings, Wiesel can't even respond to Idek. “If only I could have told him I couldn't move!” (65). Wiesel is beaten into silent submission simply because he failed to keep quiet when it really mattered. This illustrates exactly why silence is so prevalent in Wiesel's particular situation; not staying silent could cost you a beating, or maybe even death. This is also well illustrated in the final example of this type of silence, when Wiesel watches his father die before his eyes. Wiesel did everything he could to ease his father's suffering in his last days on earth, bringing him soup and caring for him in his hospital bed. Yet these kind acts are not done without a sense of selfishness: Wiesel, speaking for himself, admits, "It is too late to save your old father... You should have two rations of bread" (115). Wiesel harbors the idea that his life is more important than that of his dying father. But,of course, he only does it within himself, never sharing his thoughts with anyone. In this way Wiesel demonstrates the only form of suffering that seemed to exist in the death camps: silence, both internal and external. And his suffering is only amplified when his father finally dies whispering his son's name. Weisel doesn't even react when his father is literally beaten to death before his eyes: "I didn't move. I was scared" (116). Wiesel never made a conscious decision to abandon his father; it simply happened as a result of the oppressive lifestyle of the concentration camps. And while this is justifiable in Wiesel's situation, this scene still demonstrates exactly what happens to a person when they are unable to express their opinions or feelings. The only two options for Holocaust victims seem to be evident in all these examples: silence or die. This is reflected in the novel not only in Wiesel's struggles but also in the lives of the entire oppressed Jewish race. The Nazis forced these innocent people into these camps where they were massacred for no reason. One of the first images Wiesel sees in Birkenau leaves a scar representative of this idea of ​​"victims without cause": the image of children being burned alive. "How is it possible that [the Nazis] burned people, children, and the world was silent? ... It was a nightmare" (41). Here Wiesel seems to speak not only for himself, but for the entire human race. The Jewish people were forced to live a life they had done nothing to deserve. Everything was taken away from them, their possessions (43-44), their family (38-39) and even their lives. Six million people were silenced, and these poor souls could do nothing but watch, and pray that this wouldn't happen to them. Every now and then, of course, there was an example of humanity's brighter side shining through, as is evidenced by Wiesel's friend Juliek, who manages to hide his violin from the Nazis until his death (100). “He played a fragment of Beethoven's concerto,” which he had been ordered not to do (100, 57). Here is an example of a man who broke the silence that the Nazis had perpetrated on him. They had attempted to silence the music Juliek wished to play, saying, "Jews are not allowed to play German music" (57). However, Juliek held on to its final possession until the end. His violin is perhaps the most significant example of defiance towards the Nazis in the entire novel simply because he plays it proudly and publicly in open rebellion. But, unfortunately, this type of behavior is not typical of the Jewish people of Night. Instead, they turn on each other, effectively aiding the Nazis in their campaign. One of the first examples occurs when Mrs. Schachter refuses to stay on the train and "some young men force her to sit down, tie her up, and gag her mouth" (34). The other Jews cannot stand his incessant ranting about "fire" and want nothing more than silence. This actually provides an allusion to the previous point of silence connected to the night. These exhausted Jews, who still do not know what awaits them, want nothing more than to be able to spend the night peacefully on the train, which has temporarily become their refuge. In this situation, silence is actually preferable. Another example of Jews betraying each other occurs in a slightly different form when Wiesel witnesses the hanging of another Jew. Ten thousand prisoners watch without making a sound. A Nazi commander orders them to uncover their heads as a sign of respect. All ten thousand do as they are told and then file past the deceased without saying a word. Wiesel's only comment on the matter is that "he found the soup excellent that evening" (70). That isclearly demonstrates what is already happening to the Jewish victims at this point in the book; they have lost the true sense of mourning, even in silence, and now place more value on food than on the death of a man they knew. The quiet "last respects" take on an ironic tone simply because these tortured people no longer seem capable of showing true remorse. In this way, Jews actually help kill their own, because they are unable to even respect another after his death. Another brief example of this occurs when Akiba Drummer is sentenced to death and asks Wiesel and others to "Say the Kaddish for [him]" (83). They promise but ultimately forget when the time comes. In this way Wiesel reflects the terrible nature that had gripped him and his people: they no longer prayed for the deceased; they were simply forgotten. Humans were no longer respected enough to remember. Silence, in this case spiritually, had become a way of life not only for Wiesel but for all Jews in the concentration camps. A final example of this common form of silence occurs during the snowy ride from Auschwitz to Gleiwitz. At one point the Jews are granted a brief respite and Wiesel takes the opportunity to lie down in the snow with his father. And as much as he wants to die, “something inside [him] rebelled against death” (95). He refuses to end up like the other Jews around him: «All around me death moved silently, without violence. It took possession of some sleeping being, entered into it and consumed it little by little" (95). This was the true nature of Holocaust death; The Jews had lost the ability to fight. There was no kicking or screaming; death simply took these sad fragments of people away while they slept. In a way, this seems to fit with the rest of the Jewish experience in the camps. These innocents had almost unconsciously learned to suffer in silence, and when the final reckoning came, they faced this too in silence. The Jewish spirit had been crushed in that “death march,” and it was sadly fitting that so many met their end in the same way they had been forced to live: in silence. But the story of the Night is not entirely meaningless. of all hope. The few real signs of breaking the silence in this dire situation come in the form of religious faith. Wiesel is certainly not the shining example of eternal loyalty to God that the beginning of the story suggests he might be. However, his struggle with God, manifested both in relationships with others and internally, is certainly a worthy effort. The first example of this valiant, but often silent, fight occurs during Wiesel's first night in the camp, when he speaks of never being able to shake off the memory of what had happened to him and his people. "I will never forget that nocturnal silence that deprived me, for eternity, of the desire to live. I will never forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. I will never forget those things, even if they are condemned to live as God himself Never" (43). Here we see Wiesel's first real break with his faith. He changed so quickly from a boy who "deeply believed" (14) in the beginning of the narrative to a man destroyed who actually watches his faith die before him. He also notes the “silence of the night” in the quoted passage. This is significant because it once again brings the reader back to this idea of ​​the night as a silent time rest. However, in Wiesel's world, silence means nothing but death; and in this case it is the death of God. Another example of Wiesel watching God as he comes"murdered" occurs when the Nazis hang three prisoners, one of whom is a boy. As the other prisoners pass by, Wiesel hears a man ask aloud where God is in this situation. Wiesel silently answers himself: "Where is he? There he is – he is hanging on this gallows" (72). This passage speaks volumes not only about Wiesel's struggles, but also about the actual role God plays in the Holocaust. Wiesel has reached a point where he can no longer believe in the goodness and justice of God. He never states that he no longer believes completely. Indeed, this is very significant for his subsequent journey. However, for now, Wiesel simply denies that God could care about the Jews, his chosen people. This raises the interesting topic of religious silence, this time from God's "perspective". The Almighty is seemingly silent throughout the entire ordeal that Wiesel and others like him have faced. If nothing else, it is not difficult to sympathize and understand why Wiesel found it impossible to maintain his faith in this situation. However, his faith actually seems stronger than he might be willing to admit. An interesting example of this occurs during Yom Kippur when Wiesel decides not to fast to challenge God. «I no longer accepted God's silence. As I swallowed my bowl of soup, I saw in that gesture an act of rebellion and protest against of Him" ​​(76). Once again Wiesel mentions that God is silent. He never claims that God is completely dead or that his faith is completely destroyed. Even when the boy died on the gallows, Wiesel only seemed to declare his faith in God, and not God himself, dead. This is significant because Wiesel specifically says that he no longer accepts God's silence, and yet that statement implies that he has some faith left in God simply because he acknowledges His existence. Wiesel may have become silent in his relationship with the Creator but, as can be seen in the above examples, silence does not necessarily mean complete detachment. God is apparently silent towards Wiesel and his fellow prisoners, so Wiesel is silent too. This is probably the lowest point Wiesel reaches in the entire novel. After this act of open defiance, the reader can see an example of a slight change of heart on Wiesel's part. This occurs during the death march when Wiesel realizes that Rabbi Eliahou's son had left his father to die in the snow. This arouses something unexpected in Wiesel: "And, in spite of myself, a prayer arose in my heart, to that God in whom I no longer believed. My God, Lord of the Universe, give me the strength to never do what I Rabbi Eliahou's son did" (97). This scene is extremely important because it marks a "breaking of silence" for Wiesel truth, mourning the downtrodden Torah scholar he once was. However, it seems to be an encouraging step in the right direction. But, like everything good about Night, it doesn't last too long early, as previously mentioned, and Wiesel simply lives out his remaining time in his new concentration camp in relative silence. In fact, the few remaining pages of the novel after the death of Wiesel's father contain almost no dialogue of any kind as if Wiesel were saying that his only reason to continue communicating with the rest of humanity died with his father. His life is now nothing more than a silent waiting game. And when he is finally freed at the end of the novel, he spends a couple of weeks in the hospital "between life and death" (119). Finally he gathers his strength and looks at himself in the mirror,.