Night Study Guide

Global Literature Name___________________
Night by Elie Wiesel

Chapters 1 & 2

1. What are your initial reactions to the book? What did you notice about: your own emotional reaction (how did you feel), your intellectual reaction (what do you want to know more about, etc.), the writing (what words, phrases, descriptions caught your attention)?








2. Why do you think Wiesel starts the book with the story of Moishe the Beadle?




3. What do the following lines tell the reader about the people of Sighet? Why might the people behave in this way? What kind of mood does this create? How?

a. The people were saying, ‘The Red Army is advancing with giant strides…Hitler will not be able to harm us, even if he wants to…” Yes, we even doubted his resolve to exterminate us. Annihilate an entire people? Wipe out a population dispersed throughout so many nations? So many millions of people! By what means? In the middle of the twentieth century! (8)








4. Find another passage, similar to the one above, that Wiesel includes to create irony, foreshadowing and a mood of foreboding. Include the page number.











5. Explain the importance of the following passage.

NIGHT. No one was praying for the night to pass quickly. The stars were but sparks of the immense conflagration that was consuming us. Were this conflagration to be extinguished one day, nothing would be left in the sky but extinct stars and unseeing eyes (21).













6. Compare the passage above to the similar passage from the first translation.
Night No one prayed, so that the night would pass quickly. The starts were only sparks of the fire
which devours us. Should that fire die out one day, there would be nothing left in the sky but dead stars, dead eyes (18)







7. Write down one line that you think best describes the experience of the transport (chapter 2). Why did you select this line?





8. Why does Wiesel include the story of Mrs. Schachter? How does it affect the mood, etc.?







9. Write down at least one topic and what the author is trying to say about this topic (the theme) for these two chapters.



Chapter 3:

1. Why were Elie and his father persuaded to lie about their ages? What difference would it have made?


2. One of the prisoners in charge gave Elie some advice for surviving in the concentration camps. What did he advise?


Chapter 4:

1. Possessions take on a very significant role in this chapter. Give an example of what the prisoners did to obtain or keep their possessions.



2. Who was the “sad-eyed angel”? Why was he killed?



3. Juxtapose these two remarks about soup.
“I remember that on that evening, the soup tasted better than ever ” (Wiesel 63)
“That night the soup tasted of corpses” (Wiesel 65)
What do these lines show us about Elie Wiesel’s changed character?




Chapters 5 & 6

1. Describe Elie’s actions and feelings regarding the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. What do they tell us about his internal conflict regarding his faith? Compare to earlier sections of the book.









2. What did Akiba ask of his fellow inmates and why is it significant that they forgot to do it?





3. Explain the context behind the following line. Who said it and why? What is the subtext of the line (the important, yet unspoken message)?
“I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises to the Jewish people.”









4. Give an example of how survival was often just a matter of luck, no matter how much people may have tried to think through a strategy.







5. Give an example of irony that’s described at the end of chapter five.








6. Why are the prisoners evacuating and in the manner in which they are?








7. Describe some of the hardships of their journey.








8. Remembering of course that these events really happened and are not just literary devices created by an author, what meaning do you find in the story of Juliek and the fragment of a Beethoven concerto? (i.e. There’s no right or wrong answer, so long as you have a thoughtful answer.)






Chapters 7, 8, & 9 & Forward

1. There are several moments where Elie Wiesel focuses our attention to family relationships, usually in regard to fathers and sons. Give two such examples. Why does he do that? What do the different examples show us about the relationship between Elie and his father?












2. Describe Elie Wiesel’s reaction to his father’s deteriorating health, what was his own internal struggle during this time?







3. Explain the significance of the last words in this chapter: “free at last.”







4. What do you think that among the men liberated along with Elie, no one “thought of revenge”?



5. What does Elie Wiesel see in the mirror after liberation? Explain.

6. Go back and read the forward to Night.
a. How does it add to your understanding of the memoir?








b. Do you agree or disagree with the decision to omit (leave out) that parts that they did?









7. How are you feeling and/or what are you thinking after reading this story? What aspects of the story had the greatest impact on your thoughts or feelings? Did it change or confirm the way you look at the world in anyway? What lasting questions are you left with? Using all these questions as prompts, fill in the remainder of this page with a thoughtful response to the book.