Ally Hughes, Aly Murphy, Marie Ekamby, Lydia Sambuco, Kira Lauring

Ms. Rostiser
GT English 10
2 June 2014
Literary Criticism of Night
Literary criticism provides a filtered view of certain aspects of a piece of literature. This
specified view helps the reader gain a better understanding of what they are reading, as well as
helping the reader see the significance of the work. Through formalistic, archetypal,
psychological, sociological, and philosophical literary approaches, a critic is better able to
analyze Elie Wiesels Night and its overall literary and thematic impact.
A formalistic approach enables a critic to consider the whole of a work of literature when
forming their opinion. By its definition, a formalistic approach to literary criticism takes into
account a works figurative language, themes, and implied meanings. Formalistically analyzing
Night reveals themes of hopelessness and a loss of humanity. As Wiesel adjusts to his life in a
concentration camp, he loses all hope for the future (Wiesel 22) and all hope of regaining the
humanity he lost to the Nazis. In addition to these implied themes of the Holocaust, Wiesels
characterization of himself reveals a deeper meaning of an extreme loss of innocence as he and
his father slowly die. This loss of innocence embodies elements of both emotional and physical
maturity, which, formalistically speaking, largely contribute to the overall meaning and
interpretation of the text.
To expand, an archetypal literary approach permits the critic to utilize commonly seen
archetypes to interpret the literary work. A literary archetype is a typical character, action, or
situation that illustrates universal patterns of human nature. Analyzing Night through this

approach reveals archetypes such as good and evil, which allows the critic to better analyze the
literary work. For example, the novel is narrated by a Jewish Holocaust survivor, thus it is
illustrated that the Jews represent the good and their oppressors (Wiesel 12), the Nazis,
represent the evil. Like the formalistic approach to literary criticism, loss of innocence is
revealed as an archetype through this approach. For example, Wiesel witnesses the hanging of a
young pipel, a child who is punished severely for a crime (Wiesel 41). The loss of innocence
archetype is illustrated here because Wiesel witnessed a young boy, like himself, be punished for
a crime he probably did not understand or commit. Archetypes such as these allow the critic to
effectively interpret the authors situation within the literary composition through the archetypal
approach.
Night can also be analyzed psychologically. According to Sigmund Freud, society
demands restraint and order. However, this is disproved by the situations of chaos within the
novel. Of course, the Nazis demand order from the Jews, but over time, the Jewish people
become more difficult to control as they fight for survival. Many deaths occur as people fight for
food (Wiesel 67). The id level of consciousness, explained by Freud, takes control of many
within Night, as the id controls ones primal desires. Soon, the ego, or more rational level of
consciousness, is not present in many as people solely focus on their own survival.
Through philosophical analysis, analyzing the ethics of Night helps the reader further
understand what Elie Wiesel experiences within the novel. The ethical battle that Elie faces
when deciding whether or not to leave his father behind is an essential part of Wiesels battles.
When he remains with his father, Wiesels keeping the ethics of staying with family shows the
strength that he has been able to maintain up to the gradual loss of these ethics. As his situation

grows more difficult, this shift in attitude displays the brutality that the Jews face from the Nazis
as well as the drastic choices they have to make in order to survive (Wiesel 75).