Eye Motif in Night by Elie Wiesel - 959 Words

The Soul’s Mirror Eyes have guided mankind throughout all history, whether they allowed us to foresee danger or helped us find our loved ones. They have granted us sight over what would otherwise be invisible to us. When looking at someone, one can tell how they are feeling by staring into his or her eyes. Our eyes never lie. Our eyes will often mirror our souls and display our true inner emotions. In Elie Wiesel’s autobiographical narrative, Night, he uses the eye motif to portray characters’ true souls. In some parts of the narrative, Night, Wiesel used eyes to display the hope and positive emotion in characters. In the beginning of the story, eyes were used as an indication of Moche the Beadle’s calmness in the following quote. â€Å"I†¦show more content†¦His eyes show he is still alive, but his soul’s essence is dimmed and now weak; he is near death. The following event happens before a selection and Akiba Drumer instantly gives up ho pe. â€Å"Suddenly his eyes would become blank, nothing but two open wounds, two pits of terror† (Wiesel 82). While Akiba may still be physically alive, his eyes show how his soul is now dead and overwhelmed by terror; he is now a mere walking corpse. Elie and his father are seeking shelter from the frozen temperature in the brick factory in the next scene. â€Å"His eyes were petrified, his lips withered, decayed† (Wiesel 94). Elie’s father’s eyes show how he has been reduced to a brittle stone that is about to crack. Elie Wiesel used eyes as a motif in his narrative, Night, as windows to characters’ inner souls. He used eyes to assist the theme of surviving at all costs throughout the story by giving the audience an insight of people’s true emotions and status. Without eyes, we would have been blind to see past characters’ outer layers of fake emotion. There is more than the eye can see. One has to look deep into another’s ey es to see the true light or darkness within them. Works Cited Wiesel, Elie. Night. Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,Show MoreRelatedThe Holocaust : Extreme Evil1025 Words   |  5 Pagescost. Elie Wiesel witnesses this first hand on many accounts and spends his life striving to educate the world about the horrors of the Holocaust. In his Holocaust memoir, Night, he uses the motifs: night, silence, and flames, to develop the idea that evil is part of human nature. The motif flames symbolizes suffering and death of innocent people out evil and intolerance within human nature. The Nazis senselessly follow orders to burn millions of people, sentencing them to their death. Wiesel noticesRead MoreThe Theme of Darkness in Night by Elie Wiesel1514 Words   |  7 Pagesthan what is first apparent on the surface. 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