Night Chapter Notes 1
Night
By Elie Wiesel
Student Study Guide part 2
Name: ________________
Mrs. Curley / Mr. Valentin
English 10
Night Chapter Notes 2
Chapter 5
Explain why Elie pairs Rosh Hashanah with the last day of the year.
How does Elie feel towards God?
What literary term is the following sentence? “Thousands of lips repeated the benediction, bent
over life trees in a storm.” Explain what this means.
How do the rest of the prisoners act on Rosh Hashanah?
Again, what is the Kaddish?
What is Elie’s dilemma on Yom Kippur? What does he decide to do?
What is the terrible word? Why?
Night Chapter Notes 3
How does Elie avoid selection?
What literary term best describes the following passage? Explain why. “The bell. It was already
time to part, to go to bed. The bell regulated everything. It gave me orders and I executed them
blindly. I hated that bell. Whenever I happened to dream of a better world, I imagined a universe
without a bell.”
What is Elie’s “inheritance”? How does Elie feel towards it?
What did Akiba Drumer ask the others to do for him? Did they do it? Why is Akiba Drumer’s
death so despairing?
Why does Elie go to the infirmary? What is the advice he receives?
How does Elie’s operation go?
How does the faceless neighbor feel towards Hitler?
Night Chapter Notes 4
Read the following passage, and then answer all the bolded questions:
The camp had become a hive of activity. People were running,
calling to one another. In every block, the inmates prepared for
the journey ahead. I had forgotten about my lame foot. A doctor
came into the room and announced:
"Tomorrow, right after nightfall, the camp will start on its
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march. Block by block. The sick can remain in the infirmary.
They will not be evacuated."
That news made us wonder. Were the SS really going to leave
hundreds of prisoners behind in the infirmaries, pending the arrival of their liberators? Were they really going to allow Jews to
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hear the clock strike twelve? Of course not.
"All the patients will be finished off on the spot," said the
faceless one. "And in one last swoop, thrown into the furnaces."
"Surely, the camp will be mined," said another. "Right after
the evacuation, it will all blow up."
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As for me, I was thinking not about death but about not wanting
to be separated from my father. We had already suffered so much,
endured so much together. This was not the moment to separate.
I ran outside to look for him. The snow was piled high, the
blocks' windows veiled in frost. Holding a shoe in my hand, for I
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could not put it on my right foot, I ran, feeling neither pain nor cold.
"What are we going to do?"
My father didn't answer.
"What are we going to do?"
He was lost in thought. The choice was in our hands. For
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once. We could decide our fate for ourselves. To stay, both of us,
in the infirmary, where, thanks to my doctor, he could enter as either a patient or a medic.
I had made up my mind to accompany my father wherever he
went.
30
"Well, Father, what do we do?"
He was silent.
"Let's be evacuated with the others," I said.
He didn't answer. He was looking at my foot.
"You think you'll be able to walk?"
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"Yes, I think so."
"Let's hope we won't regret it, Eliezer."
AFTER THE WAR, I learned the fate of those who had remained at
the infirmary. They were, quite simply, liberated by the Russians,
two days after the evacuation.
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Night Chapter Notes 5
Line 1 is an example of what literary term? What does this show?
Define the word lame (line 3) from the context of this passage.
Why does Elie ask the audience questions (lines 7-11)?
Lines 37-40 are an example of what literary term. Why?
What is the motif of this passage? Use support to explain the motif you chose.
Night Chapter Notes 6
Fine one example of anaphora in chapter 5. What is the benefit of repetition in this passage?
Chapter 6
Read the following passage and then answer all the bolded questions:
AN ICY WIND was blowing violently. But we marched without faltering.
The SS made us increase our pace. "Faster, you
tramps, you flea-ridden dogs!" Why not? Moving fast made us a
little warmer. The blood flowed more readily in our veins. We had
the feeling of being alive…
"Faster, you filthy dogs!" We were no longer marching, we were
running. Like automatons. The SS were running as well, weapons
in hand. We looked as though we were running from them.
The night was pitch-black. From time to time, a shot exploded in the darkness. They had orders to shoot anyone who
could not sustain the pace. Their fingers on the triggers, they did
not deprive themselves of the pleasure. If one of us stopped for a
second, a quick shot eliminated the filthy dog.
I was putting one foot in front of the other, like a machine. I
was dragging this emaciated body that was still such a weight. If
only I could have shed it! Though I tried to put it out of my
mind, I couldn't help thinking that there were two of us: my body
and I. And I hated that body. I kept repeating to myself:
"Don't think, don't stop, run!"
Near me, men were collapsing into the dirty snow. Gunshots.
A young boy from Poland was marching beside me. His name
was Zalman. He had worked in the electrical material depot in
Buna. People mocked him because he was forever praying or
meditating on some Talmudic question. For him, it was an escape
from reality, from feeling the blows …
All of a sudden, he had terrible stomach cramps.
How is the weather at the start of the chapter?
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15
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Night Chapter Notes 7
Examining the sentence on lines 5-6, what word or words make the sentence preposterous?
Why?
What happened to anyone who could not keep up with the march?
Why does Elie refer to his fellow man as a filthy dog?
Besides “filthy dog” find one other simile or metaphor in the passage and explain it.
Define the word emaciated (line 16).
In this passage, find a sentence with interesting syntax. Explain why the syntax is
important.
Who is Zalman?
Night Chapter Notes 8
What happens to Zalman?
Find three different literary terms in the following passage and explain them.
“I soon forgot him. I began to think of myself again. My foot was aching, I shivered with every
step. Just a few more meters and it will be over. I'll fall. A small red flame…A shot…Death
enveloped me, it suffocated me. It stuck to me like glue. I felt I could touch it. The idea of dying,
of ceasing to be, began to fascinate me. To no longer exist. To no longer feel the excruciating
pain of my foot. To no longer feel anything, neither fatigue nor cold, nothing. To break rank, to
let myself slide to the side of the road…”
In the sentence “…I still owned a body that galloped down the road among thousands of others”
Why is the word galloped used?
How far do the Jews run?
Where do they pause for relief?
“The snow seemed to me like a very soft, very warm carpet” – What 2 literary terms is this?
Night Chapter Notes 9
According to Elie, why do people die?
What happens between Rabbi Eliahu and his son? Why does this happen? Why does this scare
Elie?
What was Juliek’s last act?
In the final pages of this chapter find four examples of personification.
Chapter 7
What does the light on the horizon reveal?
“Then two ‘gravediggers’ grabbed him by the head and feet and threw him from the wagon, like
a sack of flour.” What literary term is this? What does this emphasize?
Define the word vitality.
Night Chapter Notes 10
What happens in the flashforward?
Explain the incident between the men and the bread.
Why does Elie mention his age at the end of the bread incident?
What happens between the stranger and Elie?
Where do they arrive at the end of the chapter?
Chapter 8
Explain how the father/son roles had been reversed in the case of Elie and his father?
What literary term is the following sentence? “This discussion continued for some time. I knew
that I was no longer arguing with him but with Death itself, with Death that he had already
chosen.”
Night Chapter Notes 11
When Elie thinks he lost his father, what is his reaction?
What does Elie compare himself to? What does he compare his father to?
Elie compares himself to Rabbi Eliahu’s son, is this a fair comparison?
Why was Elie’s father being beaten?
What did Elie think of the advice given to him by the head of the block?
What happened between January 28th and January 29th?
What are the last words of the chapter? Explain them.
Night Chapter Notes 12
Chapter 9
What happened on April 5th? What does the Lagerkommandant announce?
To where do Elie’s thoughts go first? Why? What are the prisoners first acts as free men?
What was the resistance movement? What did they do?
Explain how personification is present in the last sentences of the memoir. Why does the text end
here?