Home Taking Action First  Reading Journals Group Assignments Memoir    Links Student Samples Tests
Night, by Elie Wiesel

Group Assignments for Understanding of the Language and Themes

Worksheet 1, Worksheet 2, Worksheet 3, Worksheet 4, Worksheet 5, Worksheet 6

Worksheet 1(section 1)-AIM: How were the Jews of Sighet in denial concerning the Nazis? 

Show that the author uses irony, metaphor and simile ( literary terms) to demonstrate how the people of Sighet were in denial concerning the Nazi threat to their lives. This denial led to their inaction and eventual deportation and death for the majority of them. 

How are these lines ironic?

1. Page 6-"Yes we even doubted he wanted to exterminate us. 

Was he going to wipe out a whole people? Could he exterminate a population scattered throughout so many countries? So many millions? What methods could he use ? And in the middle of the twentieth century!"

2. Page 6 "Besides , people were interested in everything-in strategy, in diplomacy, in politics, in Zionism-but not in their own fate."

3. page 7- "The German's won't get as far as this. They'll stay in Budapest. . . . 

Before three days had passed, German army cars had appeared in our streets.." 

4. " However, our first impressions of the Germans were most reassuring." 

5. page 8,9 -"My father didn't consider it so grim-. . . 

The yellow star? Oh well, what of it? You don't die of it. . . . ." (Poor Father! Of what then do you do die?)"

6. "Little by little life returned to normal. The barbed wire which fenced us in did not cause us any real fear. We thought ourselves rather well off."

7. pages 9, 10- The general opinion was that we wee going to remain in the ghetto until the end of the war, until the arrival of the Red Army. Then everything would be as before."

8. page 18- "At dawn there was nothing left of this melancholy We felt as if we were on holiday./ Maybe we are being deported for own our good."

Explain the 2 metaphors and simile. 

1.page 8-"We wished the feast were over, so we did not have to play this comedy any longer./ One the seventh day of Passover, the curtain rose.": 

2. page 15- They went by fallen, dragging their packs, dragging their lives,, deserting their homes, the years of the childhood, cringing like beaten dogs." 

3. "Everywhere rooms lay open. . . .An open tomb.
_________________________________________________________________

Worksheet 2 (section 2) -AIM: Is Madam Shacter as madwomen, a prophet or a witness? 

How does Elie Wiesel use literary terms such as metaphor, irony, simile, and foreshadowing in his book, Night, to show how the Jews of Sighet were terrorized by the Nazis? 

Write the correct literary term for each quote and write how you know you have the correct literary term. 

1.______________________page 22 The Hungarian lieutenant went among us with a basket and collected the last possessions from those who no longer wished to taste the bitterness of terror._

2. _____________________ The world was a cattle wagon hermetically sealed.

3. ______________________Standing in the middle of the wagon, in the pale light from the windows, she looked like a withered tree in a corn field. 

4. ____________________page 23"Jews, listen to me. I have seen fire! There are huge flames! It is a furnace!"

5. ________________________Our terror was about to burst the sides of the train. 

6. ________________________page 24 They struck her several times on the head--blows that might have killed her. 

7. ________________________The heat, the thirst, the pestilential stench, the suffocating lack of air--these were as nothing compared with these screams which tore us to shreds. A few more and we should all have started to scream.

8. _________________________page 25 And as the train stopped , we saw this time that flames were gushing out of a tall chimney into the black sky. 

Madam Schachter was silent herself. Once more she had become dumb, indifferent, absent and had gone back to her corner.
_________________________________________________________________

Worksheet 3-pages 27 to 43 (section 3) 

AIM: How does Elie Wiesel use literary terms such as symbol, metaphor, irony, simile, and imagery, in his book, Night, to show how the Jews of Sighet were being stripped of their humanity and identity and how Elie lost his belief in God. 

Write the correct literary term for each quote and write how you know you have the correct literary term. 

1.______________________page 27 The cherished objects we has brought with us thus far were left behind in the train, and with them, at last, our illusions.

2. _____________________ page 29 "You must never lose faith, even when the sword hangs over your head. that's the teaching of our sages. . . .".

3. ______________________page 30 Babies! Yes, I saw it with my own eyes. . . . Those children in the flames. ( Is it surprising that I could not sleep after that/ Sleep had fled from my eyes.) 

4. ____________________But I told him that I didn't believe that they could burn people in our age, that humanity would never tolerate it. . . . .___ __ 

5. ________________________page 31 I do not know if it has ever happened before in the long history of the Jews, that people have ever recited the prayer for the dead for themselves. 

6. ________________________We marched slowly on, as though following a hears at our own funeral. . . . .There it was now in front of us, the pit and its flames.

7. ________________________page 32 Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night.. . . .Never shall I forget the faces of the little children whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. 

8._________________________Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. 

9. ________________________Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. 

Find the quote that you can use to answer the AIM. 

10.simile -page 33 and 34 

11. metaphor- page 34 

12. metaphor- page 35 

13.simile-page 36 

14_internal conflict-page 37 

15. irony - page 37 

16. smell imagery- and irony- page 37 

17. irony- page 38 

18. irony- page 39 

19 plot ( He looses his name.) -page 39 

20.irony- page 41 

21. irony- page 42 

22. irony- page 43 
_________________________________________________________________

Worksheet 4-Can you find examples of literary terms: metaphor, simile, imagery, irony, and resistance and choice of the prisoners and explain them? 

From pages 45-62 ( section 4)

examples of resistance and choice- 51, 53, 60 

irony- 45-7, 52 

simile- 47, 50, 52, 56-8 

metaphor- 50 

imagery-62 
_________________________________________________________________

Worksheet 5-Can you find examples of literary terms: metaphor, simile, imagery, irony, and characterization of Elie Wiesel (How has he changed?) and explain them? 

From Pages 63 to 80 (section 5)

smile-64-5, 76 

metaphor-69, 72, 79 

irony- 65-7, 71, 77-8 

Imagery- 79, 80
________________________________________________________________

Worksheet 6-Can you find examples of literary terms: metaphor, simile, imagery, irony, characterization of Elie Wiesel (How has he changed?) and indifference and explain them? 

From pages 81-109  (sections 6-9)

simile- 81, 83-4, 86 

irony-81, 83-4, 86-90, 92, 103 

characterization-82, 86, 101-2, 106 

metaphor-82-5, 88, 95 

imagery- 86, 89-90, 92,97 

indifference-84, 86-8, 92