Fragments of Memory: A Critical Review of Elie Wiesel’s Night
Author : Dr. Manisha Mathur
Abstract :
This article examines Elie Wiesel’s Night through the dual lens of Holocaust testimony and trauma theory, situating the text as both a personal narrative and a collective act of remembrance. Drawing on the theoretical insights of Cathy Caruth, Shoshana Felman, Dori Laub, Lawrence Langer, and Geoffrey Hartman, the review demonstrates how Wiesel’s fragmented and repetitive style reflects the difficulty of articulating trauma, the paradox of survival, and the impossibility of closure. The article emphasises the text’s enduring ethical importance to remember, to bear witness, and to resist denial or distortion in contemporary times. By engaging with themes of faith, silence, and the father–son relationship, it argues that Night breaks cultural boundaries, resonating not only as a Jewish tragedy but as a universal human warning. Readers will gain a deeper understanding of how trauma disrupts narrative form, how testimony functions as a performative act of memory, and why Wiesel’s work remains indispensable in an era marked by historical distortion and cultural forgetting. The conclusion underscores that reading Night is not a passive act but an ethical encounter, compelling responsibility across generations.
Keywords :
Holocaust, Memory, Trauma, Silence.
