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In the book Night, what are three important scenes?

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Three important scenes in Night include Eliezer's travel past his home in a boxcar, symbolizing his psychological dislocation; his arrival at the camp and witnessing the chimneys of the crematorium, representing the surreal horror of his experience; and the moment when a prisoner is shot while trying to reach a cauldron of soup during an air raid, highlighting the desperation and will to survive.

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Night is full of moments that stick with readers, and the scenes that seem "important." For me, I think about themes in the book and moments that illustrate those themes. One theme is the surreal nature of what has happened to Eliezer; his experience traveling past his home inside a boxcar bound for a concentration camp, and his desperation to catch a glimpse of a familiar place, is a detail that captures something of his psychological state. His arrival at the camp and the sight of the chimneys of the crematorium is another hellish moment in which the reality of his experience seems almost beyond comprehension.

A second theme would be the humanity of the prisoners, even in the face of extermination. Take, for example, the story of how Eliezer is secretly befriended by a French woman after he is beaten at his job in the factory: the woman offers...

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words of encouragement to him, even though she knows that if the SS knew she spoke German, she would likely be sent to the camps.

A third theme would be the will to survive no matter the cost. One example that stands out is the time during an air raid when a prisoner defies orders and crawls from his barracks to an unguarded cauldron of soup. It is an act of desperation that every prisoner vicariously participates in; Eliezer watches his progress closely, only to see him shot and killed the moment he reached the cauldron.

There are many such moments. The strength of Wiesel's book is in the clarity of its detail.

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In a question like this, it seems to work out best if the reader is able to determine what constitutes importance and the selection of scenes is based off of this.  In Wiesel's work, there seems to be so many important moments where so many truths are revealed about Eliezer's belief systems and his experiences in the Holocaust.  One could argue that the moment back in Sighet, where the villagers reject Moshe the Beadle's claims about what he experienced would be a critical moment because it reflects the denial and silencing of voice on the part of the victims which helps to embolden the aggressors.  At the same time, Eliezer's experiences at Birkenau could be deemed as "important" because Eliezer rejects the presence and benevolent force of God when he sees babies and children incinerated at the hands of the Nazis.  It is also an important moment because Eliezer is separated from his mother and sister.  While there are so many important moments, I would think that the child's execution at Buna could be another important moment because it is at this moment where Eliezer's complex approach to the divine is revealed in the quotation, "God is in the gallows."  Again, to find three important scenes is both easy and difficult because there are so many moments in the essential realm and difficult to make a choice from such powerful ones.

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In the book Night, what are three important messages?

There are many important messages in Night by Elie Wiesel, but here are three of them:

  • Never give up. Elie encounters more trauma than most people would experience in a lifetime. Yet despite this, he never gives up. He keeps on going despite the appalling suffering and extreme adversity he's forced to endure. Something inside drives him on, making him all the more determined to survive and tell his story.
  • You can't choose your circumstances, but you can choose how to respond to them. Like all the other Jewish prisoners in the camp, Elie has been wrenched from his home environment and thrown into a situation not of his own choosing. Yet one of the abiding messages of Night is that there is still an existential choice to be made, a choice in how one lives one's life, even in the midst of such hopelessness and despair. Elie has chosen to live, and that means doing whatever it takes to survive in such a hostile environment. Elie could all too easily succumb to despair, but he doesn't because he knows that that would literally be the death of him.
  • A sense of community is vital. Elie may have lost his faith in God, but he never completely gives up his identity as a Jew. He knows that if he abandons his ethnic and religious identity, then the Nazis will have won. He also knows that if he's going to get through his terrible ordeal he'll have to rely on his fellow prisoners in the camp. That means acknowledging and holding on to the ancient cultural ties that bind everyone together in their hour of darkness.
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Wiesel's narrative reveals so many messages.  It is difficult to limit it to three.  I would say that one profound messge is to alert individuals to the level of cruelty of which humans are capable.  There seems to be a limitless supply of cruelty and pain that humans are able to inflict to one another.  This is perpetrated by the aggressors as well as the targets of this abuse.  One of the most profound messages of the book is how victims are able to model the behavior of their aggressors and commit the same type of atrocious behavior to one another.   The treatment of the people of Sighet to both Moshe the Beadle as well as Madame Schachter are early instances of how truly terrible it is to see the victims of cruelty modeling the same behavior to one another.  Despite all of this, the resounding message is one of survival and the capacity that humans possess to endure and, eventually, triumph.

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