Don't Fight the Enemy in Night by Elie Wiesel

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Fredrich Nietzsche once said, “Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.” This means that if a person isn’t careful, the evils that person fights against might be the very thing that person will become. This statement is valid and holds true in both life and literature. Night by Elie Wiesel supports the idea to not fight like the enemy. Wiesel uses setting and characterization to develop his story and to get this point across.
Elie Wiesel uses the setting to develop his story. Night occurs in several different locations between the ghettos and different concentration camps. The year is 1944 when the story starts and Eliezer Wiesel is living in the small town of Sighet, in Hungarian Transylvania. Not long after the story begins, the Jews of Elie’s town are forced to live in small ghettos within Sighet. Soon after their lives return to normal, they are all herded into cattle cars and begin their journey to Birkenau, the gateway to Auschwitz. Within this camp, as the horrific acts ensue, Elie begins to question his faith even more than before. Many of the prisoners became chiefly concerned with their own survival, sliding into cruelty. After months of being in the camp, the Jews are evacuated when the Russians begin to advance. They went on a death march, running for more than fifty miles before they finally arrive at the Gleiwitz concentration camp. Upon arrival, they are promptly herded into cattle cars again to go to Buchenwald. The Jews that survive, including Eliezer, are finally freed on April 11, 1945.
Moshe the Beadle was described and characterized in most depth at the beginning of the book. Moshe the Beadle was Elie’s mentor for learning about cabbala. Elie described him as physically awkward, timid a...

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...y and dies. Throughout the book, Chlomo remains a static character, a man who depends on his son for support. Chlomo is a constant presence in the novel because of his importance to Elie. He is the center of Elie’s struggle for survival. Although readers can’t hear Chlomo’s thoughts or feelings, we can see that Elie is constantly thinking of him or worrying about him. All around, he sees the other prisoners slipping into selfishness and cruelty, but Elie’s relationship with his father reminds him of the outside world, and life outside of the Holocaust.
Characterization and setting contribute to the statement made by Fredrich Nietzeche, “Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.” Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night helps to show the validation of this statement. The quote says to not fight like the enemy or someone could end up like the enemy themselves.

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