English Honors Project_ES

“Night”: A Compare and Contrast to “To Kill a Mockingbird” By ES In this essay, I will be drawing attention to the similarities and contrasts between the two novels, “Night”, by Elie Wiesel and ,”To Kill a Mockingbird”, by Harper Lee. I will be talking about similar plot events or settings, the characters, how the theme compares and contrasts as well as an overall analysis of both literary pieces. For example, both of the novels have a similarity in plot settings, specifically time wise. Night is set during the Holocaust and To Kill a Mockingbird is set during the middle of the Great Depression, two events in world history that affected the whole globe significantly. Let's start off with the theme of both literature. Night’s main theme is losing faith in their religious figure and inhumanity due to the events of the Holocaust, which is some pointers we see in the themes of To Kill a Mockingbird. Moreover, the main theme of To Kill a Mockingbird is injustice and inhumanity due to discrimination and cruel actions by the townspeople, also pointers we see in the novel Night. Both novels have a theme of inhumanity through cruel and revolting actions done by the world around them, and we can see this through quotes such as, “We had to throw our clothes at one end of the barracks. There was already a great heap there. New suits and old, torn coats, rags. For us, this was equality: nakedness. Shivering with the cold.” Page 46 of Night. There’s the similarities but what about the differences? Well, the contrasts are there as well. For example, in Night, Elie struggles with his faith and belief in his religions God while going through Auschwitz, something we do not see in To Kill a Mockingbird. This is a huge part of Night’s core theme so it does very well contrast to the core theme of Harper Lee’s novel, which has a theme of racial injustice and discrimination. Furthermore, Elie narrates in a more mature fashion as he is a teenager during the books events while To Kill a Mockingbird is narrated by a child who has a habit of being naive and childish so their views on the events happening around them also contrast to how we readers view the theme, either in a more mature and complex way or childish and less observed way. We can see this in an excerpt from To Kill a Mockingbird when Scout asks Calpurnia what rape is, “What’s rape Cal?...It’s something you’ll have to ask Mr. Finch about…He can explain it better than I can.”(Lee124) This shows Scout’s innocence and childlike curiosity rather than the mature narrations of teenage Elie such as the line, “They are committing the greatest indignity human beings can inflict on one another: telling people who have suffered excruciating pain and loss that their pain and loss were illusions. (v)”(Chapter 5). Another contributing factor to the books overall quality is the setting and plot, that is how a story is made after all. Some of the comparative topics, for example, are the historical events in each of the novels’ timeline. In Night, we see that during the authors telling of the story that the very tragic events of the Holocaust is happening while in To Kill a Mockingbird the global events

of the Great Depression are set in motion and are actively affecting the characters around the narrator. Additionally, another similarity is the prejudice and discrimination towards a minority by their own government and societies, such as the Auschwitz concentration camp in Night or the racial discrimination towards Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird. We, as the readers, can see this discrimination pointers in quotes from the books such as, “We even doubted that 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!”, from page 24 of Night, showing us the thought process when Elie’s family found out what Hitler truly intended to do to their community or, “Lula stopped, but she said, \"You ain't got no business bringin' white chillun here—they got their church, we got our'n. It is our church, ain't it, Miss Cal?\".(Chapter 12 pg. 48) showing Lula explaining the segregation of ‘colors’ and ‘whites’. Another similarity to the plot is the usage of father figures. In both novels, the main character is heavily influenced by a father figure such as in Scout’s case: she wants to make her father proud, follow his example and listen to him when he is working on the Tom Robinson trial while as in Elie’s case his father is a reminder of survival, his love and duty to his family as well as his sense of humanity in such a troubling time. As with similarities, there are their differences. One of the contrasting differences in the novels is their time setting. Night is set between the years 1941 and 1945, mainly in Auschwitz, Poland whereas To Kill a Mockingbird is set in the nonexistent town of Maycomb, Alabama in the early 1930’s. These setting details directly effect the influence of the story by giving outside knowledge to the reader that might be helpful in piecing together unfamiliar things such as outdated phrases, technology no longer used, or how and why the characters react in a way we don’t really understand. We can see this in a quote by Elie about the Holocaust refering to Hitler in present tense, showing he is still significant in current events to the story’s timeline. Genre is another literary aspect that influences how a story is told and viewed, such as a fantasy book or dystopian novels. Both books fall under one similar category: novel. Night and To Kill a Mockingbird both show characteristics that readers use to classify it into the novel genre, such as the use of narrative fiction used to make up their respective books. A novel is also a significant length and deals imaginatively with human experiences which is why both literary pieces are classified in the category novel. However, there are also other genres these novels or books fall under. Take To Kill a Mockingbird, it is classified as Southern Gothic Literature due to the contents of the story being set in the American South that tells about a disturbing or deeply flawed set of events with characters to match the mood. This differs from Night as it is classified into the genre of fictional autobiography due to the fact that this is his personal narrative about his life experiences with a touch of exaggerated or twisted events since he is recalling from memory. We can see these displays of contrasting genres from simple observation such as Scout not being a real person but rather a character heavily influenced by a real person or that Elie recounts real historical events in his perspective. Furthermore, it is to be noted that Scout is narrating in first person as with Elie’s narrative in Night but Scout, again, is not a real person so it does not count as an autobiography. Another difference is the use of primary and secondary experience, such as with Night. Elie, in his retelling of his time in one of Auschwitz’s concentration camps, is being directly affected by the events of the book compared to Scout

who, yes, is the main character in the story as she is narrating by telling the story from her point of view but she is not the character we see get influenced by the injustice of society, Tom Robinson is. Scout is affected by the events of the story but it's more secondary since Scout is being affected by the trial, not society; Scout did not have any problem up until Tom Robinson and his trial. In conclusion, both novels are similar in retrospect but have their respectable differences. Both authors, Elie Wiesel of Night and Harper Lee of To Kill a Mockingbird, wanted to send their own individualized and unique message through their own works of literature, giving light to the theme of injustice and discrimination, which they did so with astounding success. While the two novels go on to show and discuss topics that are dark or even heavy, for example antisemitism and racism, they do so differently in a way that many readers praise. In Night, Elie Wiesel describes his novel in his personal narrative, earning it the title of a must-read historical autobiography while Harper Lee went on to describe a southern gothic piece of literature. In this compare and contrast, I believe the biggest reflection to be given is the reflection both books have on society such as how Harper uses childhood innocence to conduct an understanding of racial injustice or how Elie uses quotes and personal feelings to set the mood of his novel for readers to better understand what he went through and to get we as readers to think more emotionally rather than logically. Another difference about Night vs. To Kill a Mockingbird is the theme of religion, as Elie uses the quote, “Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust.” This shows how the loss of religion slowly affects Elie throughout the novel while Harper rarely talks about religion. The only times she does is when Scout is introduced to segregation of ‘colors’ and ‘whites’ during Calpurnia’s church service and in the court scene. However, both show characters trying to use religion to support what is happening in the story; whether that be morally good or bad. To reiterate, Night and To Kill a Mockingbird compare very similarly to one another but, as told by their respected authors, they hold their own unique meaning and purpose as a whole.