And the World Remained Silent

Night is an autobiography of Elie Wiesel’s life translated by his wife Marion Wiesel. Wiesel describes the challenges he faced as a young boy starting in 1944. His Jewish family was taken from their home town in Transylvania and forced into concentration camps. Elie and his father suffer many atrocities and witnessed horrific scenes that made them question their faith throughout their time in Auschwitz and other camps.  

I have read Holocaust literature in the past. Although, I haven’t read a serious book like this in a while. I expected heart-wrenching testimonies, but I did not expect Elie Wiesel’s poignant storytelling abilities. Initially, my “reading for” was to learn more about the Holocaust from Elie Wiesel’s point of view. I have a basic understanding of the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. I am certainly not a Jewish scholar, but I was expecting to recognize some themes. As I was reading, I made many notes in the margins during my search for controlling values. To me, it feels sacrilegious to write in books, but this exercise certainly allowed me to read it more closely. 

Before reading this book, I knew this book would grapple with “the absolute evils of man” as stated in the summary on the back of the book. Immediately, I thought the premise would be, “What would happen if humans stop acting humanely?” You know what? I can do better than that. It took me until I read Elie Wiesel’s Nobel prize acceptance speech in the back of the book for a different premise to emerge in my mind. The ideas of acting humanely vs inhumanely were too broad. People can act like humans and still mistreat their fellow man. Most people would think that there are two options in life: choosing humanity or choosing inhumanity. But that is a fallacy that leaves out one important third option… choosing to do nothing.

“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere” (Wiesel 118).

I think that I found my new and improved premise. What would happen if the world remained silent in the face of injustice? This premise might explain why Elie Wiesel felt completed to share his experiences with the world. 

Robert Mckee’s book Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. In chapter 6, “Structure and Meaning,” Mckee explains that controlling ideas are 

“a story’s root or central idea….composed from these two elements, Values pulse Cause,” and that it “expresses the core meaning of the story” (Mckee 116).

The value is the positive or negative charge that enters the character’s life in the last act’s climax. The cause is the reason that the protagonist’s life has changed to the value. Throughout the book, there are several instances of sons losing their fathers. The first instance was Bela Katz who was a strong man forced to exterminate people in the concentration camp furnaces. The audience learns a chilling story on page 35, where Bela was made to throw his own father in the furnace. The second story was on page 91 when Rabbi Eliahu’s son abandoned him during a death march because he was running too slowly. On page 101, when they were in railcars awaiting transfer, Elie witnesses a son, Meir, attacks his father for a measle piece of bread. These stories all come together as Elie fights an internal battle about protecting or abandoning his father. Elie relied on his father through all of the hardships that they faced together.

“To break rank, to let myself slide to the side of the road… My father’s presence was the only thing that stopped me…I had no right to let myself die. What would he do without me? I was his sole support.” (Wiesel 86-87)

Originally, I thought that Ellie was being sentimental and that he felt his father was a valid reason to stay alive. But then I noticed the bitterness in what Elie was saying. Did he really see his father as a reason to stay alive or a burden? Elie didn’t want to die because he felt a responsibility to protect his father. Leading up to the climax, Elie sees his father’s health decline. I believe that Elie resented the weakness that he was seeing in his father. Elie was staying alive for his father. But was his father reciprocating? Elie was conflicted between not wanting to lose his father vs. wanting to be rid of the responsibility of being the stronger family member.

The first controlling idea gleaned from the last act’s climax could be: abandoning burdensome responsibilities leads to self-preservation. The counter idea would then be: embracing responsibilities leads to death. These are opposing values of holding on vs letting go of responsibility and the cause can either lead to life or ruin.

My first attempt at controlling and counter ideas came from a recurring idea that I saw throughout the story. True controlling and counter ideas should come from the last act’s climax. In Night, Elie and his father relied heavily on each other for moral support and a will to survive. Wiesel describes this as, “The old, familiar fear: not to lose him” (109). The last act’s climax occurs after Elie and his father had suffered humiliation, starvation, and brutal beatings. Towards the end of the story, Elie’s father’s health is deteriorating. As I mentioned before, I believe that Elie resented his father for his weakness. In the last moments of his life, the father calls out for his son. Elie remained in his cot for fear that his father’s cries would result in having them both beaten by the SS.

“I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. But I was out of tears. And deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last!…” (Wiesel, 112). 

This leads me to find a new controlling idea. Staying silent to someone’s suffering leads to safety. And thus the counter idea could be that helping someone in their suffering leads to danger. 

This section of the book’s value chart shows the positive and negative charges from the novel. The last act’s climax ends on a negative note and the entire book also ends with a negative charge.