Study Questions &
Essay Topics
Study Questions
1. In his 1996
memoir
All Rivers Run to the Sea, Elie Wiesel writes,
in reference to the responsibility of the Holocaust survivor, “To
be silent is impossible, to speak forbidden.” What do you think
Wiesel means? How does he resolve or circumvent this paradox?
2. Does Wiesel
believe that God is dead? Does the narrator, Eliezer?
3. What role
does chance play in Eliezer's survival of the Holocaust? What role
does choice play? Do your answers to these questions have any implications regarding
the extent of control that a person has over his or her life?
Suggested Essay Topics
1. One of the most tragic themes
in Night is Eliezer's discovery of the way that
atrocities and cruel treatment can make good people into brutes.
Does he himself escape this fate?
2. Night is
essentially Elie Wiesel's memoir about his experiences in the Holocaust.
Yet, there are minor differences between Wiesel's own experiences
and those of Night's narrator, Eliezer. Why might
that be? Must a memoir be absolutely factual?
3. Elie Wiesel won the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1986 for his championing of
human rights around the world. How might his advocacy for human
rights have grown out of his Holocaust experiences? What are the
positive lessons of the Holocaust that Wiesel hints at in Night?
4. In the midst of the dying
men in Gleiwitz, the violinist Juliek plays a fragment of music
written by the German composer Beethoven. Before and after the Holocaust,
many people wondered how the Germans, cultured Europeans, could commit
such barbaric acts. Does Wiesel suggest any rationale behind the
Holocaust in Night? Does he speculate as to the motives
of the perpetrators? What, for Wiesel, are those motives, if they
exist?
5. The Rabbi of Kotzk, a European
village later destroyed in the Holocaust, is famous for being bold
enough to challenge God: “Our Father, our King,” he said, “I shall
continue to call You Father until You become our Father.” For Wiesel,
is there a purpose to faith even without the existence or justice
of God? What do you believe?
6. It is possible to look at Night as
the story of Eliezer's loss of innocence. It might be argued, too,
that innocence is impossible after the Holocaust. Is this true?
Is it tragic, or is innocence an impediment to survival, as when
the Jews are too innocent to believe that Hitler really means to
kill them?
