Essay Comparing Night And One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich

Throughout the novel “Night” by author Elie Wiesel and “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, readers are given a look at what it was like to live in the concentration camps and gulags during the time period of World War II. In Night, Wiesel focused on detailing the everyday struggles that men, women, and children had to endure while living in the concentration camps. However, in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Solzhenitsyn placed his focus on exactly what it says in the title – one day. Every event mentioned in the text happened in one single day and was used to give readers the impression that each day after that would consist of the same routines and triumphs. Although these novels are very similar, they both depicted themes – such as dehumanization and survival – in many different ways. In Night, Wiesel described many incidents in which he and other members of the concentration camp

In Night, we see Eliezer and his family constantly put into positions where survival is the number one thing on their minds. When Eliezer and his family arrived in Auschwitz, they were greeted with one of the guards saying, “Ahead of you lies a long road paved with suffering.” Each day for this family, and many others, started out with just that – suffering. Each day they were faced with the struggle of if they were going to survive to see another day. Many times, Eliezer had to put all of his focus on himself and forget about the others – including his father – in order to make sure that he survived another day. He had to make sure that he kept up with the work that he was assigned to do and that he listened to everything the guards told him to do. Otherwise, Eliezer – as well as many of the other members of the concentration camp – knew that he would receive harsh