8/14/2019 Key Facts Full Title Night Author Elie Wiesel

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Key Facts

full title Night

author Elie Wieseltype of work Literary memoir

genre World War II and Holocaust autobiography

language Wiesel first wrote a 900-page text in Yiddish titled Un di Velt Hot Geshvign(And the World Remained Silent). The work later evolved into the much-shorter French

publication La Nuit, which was then translated into English as Night.

time and place written Mid-1950s, Paris. Wiesel began writing after a ten-year self-imposed vow of silence about the Holocaust.

date of first publication Un di Velt Hot Geshvign was first published in 1956 in Buenos

Aires. La Nuit was published in France in 1958, and the English translation was

published in 1960.publisher Unin Central Israelita Polaca (in Buenos Aires); Les Editions de Minuit (in

France); Hill & Wang (in the United States)

narrator Eliezer (a slightly fictionalized version of Elie Wiesel)

point of view Eliezer speaks in the first person and always relates the autobiographicalevents from his perspective.

tone Eliezers perspective is limited to his own experience, and the tone of Night istherefore intensely personal, subjective, and intimate. Night is not meant to be an all-

encompassing discourse on the experience of the Holocaust; instead, it depicts the

extraordinarily personal and painful experiences of a single victim.

tense Pastsetting (time) 19411945, during World War II

settings (place) Eliezers story begins in Sighet, Transylvania (now part of Romania;

during Wiesels childhood, part of Hungary). The book then follows his journey throughseveral concentration camps in Europe: Auschwitz/Birkenau (in a part of modern-day

Poland that had been annexed by Germany in 1939), Buna (a camp that was part of theAuschwitz complex), Gleiwitz (also in Poland but annexed by Germany), andBuchenwald (Germany).

protagonist Eliezer

major conflict Eliezers struggles with Nazi persecution, and with his own faith in Godand in humanity

rising action Eliezers journey through the various concentration camps and the

subsequent deterioration of his father and himself

climax The death of Eliezers fatherfalling action The liberation of the concentration camps, the time spent in silence

between Eliezers liberation and Elie Wiesels decision to write about his experience,

referred to in the memoir when Eliezer jumps ahead to events that happened after theHolocaust

themes Eliezers struggle to maintain faith in a benevolent God; silence; inhumanity

toward other humans; the importance of father-son bondsmotifs Tradition, religious observance

symbols Night, fire

foreshadowing Night does not operate like a novel, using foreshadowing to hint at

surprises to come. The pall of tragedy hangs over the entire novel, however. Even as

8/14/2019 Key Facts Full Title Night Author Elie Wiesel

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early as the works dedication, In memory of my parents and my little sister, Tzipora,

Wiesel makes it evident that Eliezer will be the only significant character in the book

who survives the war. As readers, we are not surprised by their inevitable deaths; instead,Wiesels narrative shocks and stuns us with the details of the cruelty that the prisoners

experience.