Night Elie Wisel Themes

Next, in the survival/perseverance theme, the memoir “Night”, by Elie Wiesel, is about Elie’s family going into the Nazi German concentration camp. Elie’s mother and sisters got separated by his father and him. Both his father and him never got to see them again. Elie is only fifteen and had to adjust his life to living in the concentration camp, seeing people die everyday, and hanged. Elie always put his father before him, but when Elie’s father needed food when marching, a blockaltaste said to him, “Listen to me, kid. Don’t forget that you are in a concentration camp. In this place, it is every man for himself, and you cann’t think of others. Not even your father. In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone” (110). Elie thought about it and thought that he was right, so he didn’t do anything. But later on, he felt bad so went to give him food. Not just that, when his father finally died, he felt relieved. The survival/perseverance theme can teach kids when they’re in a situation that they don’t know what to do, but have to make a decision on either choosing this, or that.

Furthermore, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, tells about a family, the Finches, who helps take out injustice in their community. Atticus Finch, the father, was fighting justice for Tom Robinson because he was a black guy. Tom was accused of rapping a eighteen years old girl, Mayella, when she called him over for some help in her house. In the courthouse when they’re trying to settle things, Tom said, “Mr. Finch, if you was a nigger like me, you’d be scared, too” (195). Since the whites back then were racist, Tom was saying how no one understands because they were never in a position where a person can just hate them just for the color of their skin. This theme shows how cruel the world can be just by colors or how the society view things.

The last theme is the choices theme. Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin. In this novel a girl, Naomi, who lost her memory by tripping down the stairs and can’t remember anything past sixth grade. It was all about her amnesiac in the beginning, but later on, it’s about who she was before the incident and who she is now since the incident happened. When she finally remembers again she didn’t want to tell anyone. “I didn’t want to tell anyone about the end of my amnesia, and the effort of keeping track of what I was and wasn’t supposed to remember was exhausting time to where I began to forget insignificant things” (190). She had the choice to either tell no one, or tell someone. Her choice was to tell her best friend, Will. In the choices theme, others can learn how to make the right choice. But it’s their decision to tell themselves if it’s the right one and they won’t regret it, or it’s the wrong one that they’re making.

All the four themes, relationships, survival/perseverance, social justice, and choices in the English 10 should be kept. In these themes, students can learn many different valuable lessons in their lives.