Night Review Questions

What did the word night mean to you before you read the book? How has the meaning of the word changed for you? How did it change for the author?

Before the book, it was a peaceful, quiet time. Now, it means darkness, a time where there is no light. For the author it means he has to remember the worst time in his life every day. It is associated with fear.

In the next to last sentence in the book, Eliezer says that when he looked in the mirror after liberation, he saw a corpse contemplating him. He ends the book by stating, "The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me." What does he mean by that statement?

He has never seen himself look so dead before, the way he looked in the mirror will forever be etched in his mind.

How do these stories affect the way he reacts to his father's illness? To his father's death?

I think they give him more closure and make him know that they had a good relationship.

Explain what Elie's story means to you.

It means that in order to get through things you need hope and cant give up.

Why do you think Elie begins Night with the story of Moishe the Beadle? What lessons does the narrator seem to learn from Moishe's experiences in telling his own story.

It tells the reader some experience of the war. The lessons he seems to learn from Moishe's experiences in telling his own story is that everything that's going on is very bad.

What is the meaning of the title, Night?

Refers to the darkness and terror of life and his experience.

Night focuses on a single year in Eliezer's life. Identify some of the internal and external conflicts he faced that year.

Some internal conflicts are he loses his faith in god and he also loses his father mother and sister, along with having suicidal thoughts. Some external conflicts are that he is losing weight, he is weak and sick he also lost all his hair.He is facing outside forces that is causing his health and metal state to suffer.

What does Eliezer mean when he writes that he feels free after his fathers death? Is he free of responsibility? Or is he free to go under, to drift into death?

That the burden of his father will be done if he dies. That he is free of the responsibility of having to take care of him. Free to drift into death because his father was the reason he did not die.

How did the relationship between Elie and his father change in the course of the year on which the book focuses? How do you account for that change?

Their relations changed from independent persons to dependent persons. While in the camp, Eliezer depended on his father for guidance and his father depended on his son for protection. Eliezer would not do anything without his father's approval or reassurance that he will be with him.O

Eliezer later states, "Since my father's death, nothing mattered to me anymore." What does he mean by these words? What do they suggest about his struggle to maintain his identity?

When he died, his whole identity was gone, because he had nothing. His father kept his strength up and was his motivation to live.

Why do you think Wiesel tells his story from the first person perspective?

When you read first person, in a way you are seeing the experiences from the person's vantage point. It's more realistic, more personal.