TRISTAN

//NIGHT// PREREADING ACTIVITY

Imagine yourself in the following situation: You and your family have been driven from your home. Now separated from them, you are suddenly alone. Shoved into a train like cattle, you are surrounded by screaming women, weeping children, silent old men, and ruthless soldiers. There is no food, no water, horror, and madness everywhere. Having arrived at your destination, you smell the stench of burning flesh: babies, children like yourself. Men and boys are hanged daily. There is only soup and perhaps a few morsels of stale bread to eat. You work until exhausted and are beaten for not marching in step. The gold in your teeth is extracted without anesthesia. Frozen and broken bodies surround you. Weekly you must run like a madman to escape being selected to die in the gas chambers or to burn in the crematory. You can’t even wonder if it will end, and you know that God has deserted you. You try to survive each day and lie through each night!

1. Do you believe something like this could ever happen to you? Why or why not?

2. What would be your first reaction to this horrifying experience?

3. What means might you use to deal with what is happening (example: would you lie, cheat, steal)?

4. Do you think it would be better to give up and die or try to survive?

5. Inhumanity means being inhumanly cruel and brutal. Do you think the world could ever allow this kind of inhumanity to happen again?

6. What kind of punishment do you feel would be suitable for this kind of inhumanity?

7. Do you think this kind of inhumanity could exist in our day and age?

Reading Guide

The following questions are thought questions that relate to various themes and ideas in the reading. Use these questions to guide your reading and better understanding of the novel. Be prepared to share your responses in class discussion or in a writing assignment. Please answer all questions in COMPLETE SENTENCES.

__Chapter 1, pages 1-22__ 1. Why does Eliezer pray and why does he cry when he prays? Eilizer creis when he prays because somthing insdie of him told him to cry. And Eliezer prays because he believes in god and study's the bible. 2. Why don’t people believe Moche’s stores? People dont belive Moche's stories because they think he is lying. 3. Site examples of how the Jews gradually lose their freedom. Some examples are jews gradually lose there freedom, put into gettoes, barley having any food, and get jewlry taken away. __Chapter 2, pages 23-28__ 4. What does Madam Shachter’s nightmares about a fire foreshadow? Madam Schacter's about her foreshawdows because she has nightmares of seeing a fire but no one believes her. 5. Where does the train finally stop? The train stops in the second camp Auschwitz Birkenau. __Chapter 3, pages 29-46__ 6. When questioned by the SS officer, why does Elie lie about his occupation and age? Elie lies about his age because one of his inmates tell him to. 7. Why does Elie disbelieve what his own eyes show him? Elie can't belive what he saw people thrown in fire burned until they where nothing but ashes because he thought it was a dream and he was trying to wake himself up but he couldn't because it wasn't a dream. 8. Why is Elie now reluctant to pray? Elie is reluctant to pray now because he does think there isn't a god because he said why would god let us die like this for being my own religion. __Chapter 4, pages 47-65__ 9. Why is Elie summoned to the dentist? Elie was sommoned to the dentist because to pull out his golden crown. 10. How does Elie react to his father’s beating? Elie reacted by trying to teach his dad to learn how to march in line right. 11. Why is the hanging of the “sad eyed angel” said to be one of the most profoundly moving events in the novel? He was a son of a dad that found guns behind a locked up place plus he was a kid. __Chapter 5, pages 66-84__ 12. What is selection? when the Dr. tells the SS officers to get the prisoners then tell them to undress and for them to run to see there condition if there healthy or not.

__Chapter 6, pages 85-97__ 13. Why couldn’t Elie allow himself to die? Because Elie does not want to die he wants to stay alive as much as he can. 14. Why does Juliek play the violin? Juliek plays violin because it calms him down when he is scared and when he is sad to make him feel better. 15. Compare how the other boys treat their fathers with Eliezer’s treatment of his own father. other boys don't really care about there fathers anymore but Eliezer teats his father with respect. __Chapter 7-9 pages 98-115__ 16. Why can’t Elizer weep at his father’s death? Because Eliezer was drained of tears and if he cried he died. 17. When he is finally free, Elie wishes to see himself in the mirror. Why can’t he ever forget the look in the eyes of the corpse that gazes back at him? Because Eliezer hasn't seen himself until he left from the house of his uncles. He could never forget because he looked liked he was the walking dead.

Literary Analysis Characterization/Author’s Purpose After page: 34

Elie is a Jewish child who is extremely strong in his faith. He often spent nights in the synagogue weeping and praying. He was preparing himself to be initiating into “eternity.” Then came night.

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames, which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments, which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

Answer the following questions in complete sentences.

1. What does “night’ symbolize to Elie? Why do you think he selected it as the title of his memoir? Elie sybolizes night because everyday on the book night is like a nightmare to him. 2. What fires does he speak of that consumed his faith forever? Why do these fires consume his faith? The crematorium fires consumed his faith. Because he thought he was going to be burn to death. 3. Do you find it difficult to believe that a boy so devout in his faith could lose his faith? Why? Yes,I think this is very weird and i think he should never stop and don't lose faith. 4. Why does Elie lose his desire to live? Elie loses his desire to live because he think his life is over already when he was at the death camp. 5. Elie spoke these words as an adolescent. Do you think that as an adult his feelings have changed? Why?

6. Why do you suppose Elie wrote this novel? I think Elie wrote this novel to show why it should it never happen again

Literary Analysis: Characterization Elie explicitly recounts events that describe his relationship with his father during imprisonment in the camps. He also describes events in the relationships of other fathers and sons in the camps.

In your book there are many examples of father-son relationships. Give examples, including the page number of a father son relationship and tell what you think about that relationship, tell why you might or might not have acted in a similar way. This does not have to be done on Elie and his father. There are many other examples of father-son relationships as well. An example has been done for you.

Example: Page 39:

Relationship shown: Elie’s father is struck, but Elie does not move to help him. His father whispers that the blow does not hurt. Although Elie does not move, he feels remorse and hatred toward the gypsy. He is angry and unforgiving.

What I think: Elie is a child and probably fears that if he helps his father, he too will be beaten. His father does not blame him and does not want to see him beaten or do something he might regret; thus, he tells Elie that the blow des not hurt.

I would’ve done: This seems to be a relationship where the father is protective of the son who is young and frightened. I would have acted in the same way if I were the father, thinking that I need to protect my child.

1. Page 43-44

Relationship shown:Eliezers father heres someone call out who is the Wiesal from Sighet but Eliezer's father does not know this guy but his name is Stien. He married Eliezer's mother's niece.

What I think:Eliezer's father should remember his famliy members or act to remember them.

I would’ve done:I would of acted like i known him because he might be able to help.

2. Page 49-50

Relationship shown:The dentist was going to take elie's golden crown but elie said he had a fever and wasn't able to be there so the dentist let him slip then elie came back to the dentist and said he was still sick. Later the dentist got caught for taking golden crowns for rations of bread and some soup.

What I think:Elie should have never came back

I would’ve done:I would not go to the dentist after the day you went the first time.

3. Page 55-56

Relationship shown:Elie was trying to help his father to march but franek one of the people that watched over them was beating elie's dad witch was elie's weak spot so he tried then gave up.

What I think:i would have waited

I would’ve done:i would have waited and give him some of my ration of bread till he left.

4. Page 90-91

Relationship shown:It was a father son relationship with rabbi eliahu looking for his son but elie did not want to tell what happend to rabbi's son.

What I think:that was wrong elie did not tell rabbi what happened.

I would’ve done:i would have told rabbi what happen so he would stop searching.

5. Page 101

Relationship shown:Father and son relationship for a ration of bread and the son killed his father for a bread crust.

What I think:I think this was very stupid and so very evil.

I would’ve done:I would have shared it with my father instead of killing him for it and then be killed.

6. Page 112

Relationship shown:Was a father son relationship elie wiesel losing his father.

What I think:I think was very sad and i hope that never happens to me.

I would’ve done:I would of took him to my cot and hide him during day.

__Night__ Irony

Read each passage below. Explain what is //ironic// about the meaning of the passage.

1. “but we had been marching for only a few moments when we saw the barbed wire of another camp. An iron door with this inscription on it: ‘Work is liberty!’ “ (page 40) The concentration camps try to trick you but they would make signs like if you work you become free they just used the jews so they wont have to do most of the work no one wants to do. 2. “Some of the prominent members of the community came…to ask him what he thought of the situation. My father did not consider it so grim…’The yellow star? Oh well, what of it? You don’t die of it…’ ” (page 11) They were not dying by there religion they were dying because they were not the same as hitlers so called perfect race. 3. “On we went between the electric wires. At each step, a white placard with a death’s head on it stared us in the face. A caption: ‘Warning, Danger of Death.’ ” (page 40) Shows that if you touch it equals death witch people were trying to stay alive as much as they could. 4. I’ve got more faith in Hitler than anyone else. He’s the only one who’s kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.” (page 51) Hitler promised he would kill jews and he did it sorts of cruel ways some just so horrifying.

Inhumanity

//Night// is filled with thoughts and comments that reflect inhumanity of World War II. Explain what each of the following excerpts from the novel mean.

1. “The world? The world is not concerned with us. Today anything is allowed. Anything is possible, even these crematories.” (page 33) Elie just know people are watching and not do anything about it the bad thing about genocide is there are people that are watching it but not doing anything about it. 2. “Work makes you free.” (page 40) Work did not make you free they just killed you if you don't or you die from lack of food. 3. “we were not afraid. And yet, if a bomb had fallen on the blocks, it alone would have claimed hundreds of victims on the spot. But we were not longer afraid of death; at any rate, not of that death. Every bomb that exploded filled us with joy and gave us new confidence in life.” (page 60) They already seen enough that they are tired they rather die than live but for a good reason the good reason they will die to stop the nazis. 4. “I witnessed other hangings. I never saw a single one of the victims weep. For a long time those dried up bodies had forgotten the bitter taste of tears.” (page 63) You had no chance what so ever if you cry or do something wrong you die on the spot or you die in front of people but the people are prisoners too and they cant help you.