Night, by Elie Wiesel: Part I

One thing I noticed (although it was fairly obvious), was a connection with The Book of Job. There's a part in page forty-two, once everyone has arrived in their concentration camp,where everyone is realizing the full horror of their situation, and people try to figure out what on earth is going on, and why on earth it's going on.

"Some talked of God, of his mysterious ways, of the sins of the Jewish people, and of their future deliverance." (pg. 42)

This is almost exactly what Zophar the Naamatithe said to Job when they were talking about his sufferings. Unfortunately, since I don't have the Bible with me I can't quote him directly, but I remember because that's what we talked about in class. At first Zophar tells Job that he must have done something wrong in order to be punished this way (the sins of the Jewish people), and if he accepted his punishment and learned to worship God properly he would find happiness (their future deliverance).

I've also made a connection with the book, "Mathilda," by Roald Dahl. There's a part where Mathilda and her friends are talking about why kids don't complain to their parents about the evil headmistress, and the friend replies that they do, but the headmistress' greatest strength is that she does things so horrible parents don't believe their kids when they talk about them. It reminds me, on a bigger scale, of when Moshe the Beadle escapes from a camp and tries to tell everyone about what he witnessed there, but everyone just rolls their eyes and say that either he's gone crazy, or he just wants people to pity him. I wonder if Roald Dahl was, in any way, inspired by that part of the book.