Study Guide- Am I right on these, Mr. Fielding?

Study Guide for Night:

For the following characters list everything you know about them:

Elie: he was very religious before the holocaust, he is the third child, he cares for his father deeply, he doesn’t give up even when things seem completely impossible, he is fifteen (but eighteen in the eyes of a German man),

Chlomo: he is cultured and unsentimental in the beginning, but the torture of the concentration camps made him weak timid and vulnerable. He loves his son, and doesn’t want to leave him alone, but when living becomes to great a struggle, he gives up and succumbs to death.

Moshe the Beadle: he is poor, lived humbly, physically he was as awkward as a clown, he made people laugh with his waiflike timidity, and he spoke little. Since he was a foreigner, he was expelled from his home. When he returned with tales of death and despair, people wouldn’t listen to him and just called him crazy. He was a pity-case.

Akiba Drumer: he was a victim of selection.

Madame Schachter: she was about fifty with a ten year old son, on the first train to Auschwitz, she went crazy and screamed about fire until men had to bind, gag, and beat her into submission.

Juliek: glasses-wearing, pale faced pole who plays the violin in the band at Buna. After playing his instrument one last time, he was found trampled and dead with the violin by his side.

Joshef Mengele: he was notorious, and had received Elie at Birkenau. He was in charge of the selection that almost cost Chlomo his life.

Idek:

Franek: a former student of Warsaw, a foreman, was sympathetic and intelligent, but then tried to steal Elie’s gold crown.

Zalman: a young polish boy, he was working in an electrical warehous in Buna. During an evacuation, he got a stomach cramp and was trampled to death by the crowd.

Stein: the husband of Reizel, Elie’s mom was Reizels aunt. He had been separated by his family and had wondered if their family had heard from them.

Tzipora: Elie’s youngest sibling. She is a fair-haired seven year old. She was separated from Chlomo and Elie, and had to go with her mother instead.

List at least three types of conflict and briefly discuss who the conflict is between:

1) Person vs. Person: when the men are fighting over the scraps of bread in the train, much to some people’s amusement.

2) Person vs. Society: when the Jews are separated in to the concentration camps and killed off during “selection”.

3) Person vs. Self: when Elie is faced with the idea that he might actually want his sick father to die to get rid of dead weight.

Name two foreshadows:

-       “They were our first oppresors.” It implies there are more to come.

-       “…give me the strength to never do what the Rabbi’s son has done.” he will in the future.

List and explain two symbols:

-The quality of the soup: when times are rough, there isn’t any, and as they get better, the soup slowly gets thicker. When the “sad-eyed angel” is hung, the soup tasted like corpses. When an angry, violence-loving guard is hung, it tasted better than usual.

-The gates close behind them: it’s like sealing their fate, locking them into the camps forever, locking out hope.

List and explain two ironies:

-“Warning. Danger of Death.”: in the concentration camps, death is everywhere.

-“The good days were over.”: were there ever ‘good days’ to begin with?

Pick out two similes:

-Jealousy consumed us, burned us up like straw.

-A man appeared, crawling like a worm toward the soup.

Pick out two metaphors:

-It was an injection of morphine.

-The camp had become a hive.

List at least four settings

-The barracks in Buchenwald.

-The hospital when Elie was getting the puss removed from his foot.

Discuss how the dynamic character changes

            He changes because he looses his faith in god, and besides his father, stops caring about everything except his daily rations of bread, soup, and black coffee. At one point, if his father or loved one had been hit, he would have come to their rescue. Now he sits motionless, to afraid of a personal beating to defend his family.

Outline the plot

            In the exposition, Elie and his family are living peacefully when the Germans start to invade their community. At first it’s fine, but then they start issueing restrictions that the Jews have to follow- on pain of death. One of these are that they have to wear a golden star of their coat in public. Even though this is inconvienient and demeaning, they can live with it. Then, they are all moved into three ghettos, and slowly are evacuated from the city- street by street. Elie’s family is the last to go. They are moved to Birkenau- reception center for aushawitz. The men and women are split up, and then again divided by physical fitness. From then on, Elie and his father are moved from camp to camp, all the while suffering from starvation and thirst. They are forced to run impossible distances without stopping- on pain of death. At one point, the sole of Elie’s foot fills with puss, and he undergoes an operation to relieve it. He is forced to travel on his injury for many miles, leaving red footprints as he runs. The end draws near for Elie’s father, who is suffering from dysentery. When he dies, Elie is left with no one and nothing until, on April tenth, resistance decided to act, and liberated the captured Jews.