Night By Elie Wiesel Summary

This is the summary of the book Night, by Elie Wiesel. The subject matter of the book takes place during World War II. In this summary you, the reader, will be given a brief overview of the memoir and it will be discussed why the piece is so effective. Secondly, there will be a brief discussion about the power of one voice versus the listing of statistics. The impact of reading about individuals struggling to survive with the barest of means, will be the third and final point covered in this summary, with the authors feelings as commentary. The author’s own experience with the book is recommending you to read this summary of Night, and hopefully convince you to read the book itself.

The memoir Night, authored by Elie Wiesel, starts out with

Elie explains that the book has been translated a few times, and demonstrates this with a powerful and effective sample. Here is a portion of it. “My father no longer felt the club’s blows; I did. And yet I did not react. I let the SS beat my father, I left him alone in the clutches of death. Worse; I was angry with him for having been noisy, for having cried, for provoking the wrath of the SS.”(preface xii). Elie tries to clarify that this book is his point of view, not proven statistics. These personal statements are why the story is so effective. The emotions you feel for Elie’s hardships are hard not to relate to. Throughout the whole book, Elie lives through many hardships and tells you them from his point of view, or something he learned from someone else. From the peaceful town of Sighet, to the grim introduction into selection, and later he tells you about concentration camp life. “The march towards the chimneys looming in the distance under an indifferent sky. The infants thrown into fiery ditches... I did

They are from a man, not a machine. A machine printed his words, and reproduced them, but they are certainly as real as he’s concerned. What he, and we all experience is real to us if we think it’s real, it’s considered real if others can verify and quantify the what you have to offer. When you start classifying everything, a certain something is lost. When I say something like, minus one. Nothing is felt really, maybe money in this modern world is the first thing we’d all think. Now say one dead. Different image in your mind. Someone say they thought they saw someone dead, versus probable minus one until confirmation. The responses the reader will feel while reading Night are real. They are real because you are relating to another human being that thought and felt like you possibly do. Here’s another bland statistic, and think about the next quote and compare the two, which one stays in memory more effectively? The statistic is this. When train A left the station it had one hundred occupants, when train A arrived at its final station, train A had 12 occupants. Does this stay with you? This is why personal voices are so powerful. “Meir Katz was moaning: “Why don’t they just shoot us now?” That same night, we reached our destination. It was late. The guards came to unload us. The dead were left in the wagons. Only those who could stand could leave. Meir Katz remained on the train. The last day had been the most