The setting (time, place, social environmental backgrounds) of a piece of literature is an important factor, which influences the characters. Elie Wiesel describes the wretched setting in Night and its influence on the actions of the prisoners of concentration camps.
Night is set during World War II and its focus is in Buna and Buchenwald, Germany in which horrid scenes are described throughout the novel. Some scenes describe children being thrown into furnaces describing their agonizing deaths. Others show the mere starvation of the prisoners. Elie Wiesel, along with many other Jews are sent to concentration camps. There, they are beaten almost to death, work at a constant rate, and starve due to the lack of food served to them. Most people do not survive such conditions. In the concentration camps, furnaces are located there. It seems that the furnaces could be used to generate heat to the prisoners, although it must be a different form of heat being generated.
English: Elie Wiesel Français : Elie Wiesel
Jewish slave laborers in the Buchenwald concentrat...
English: Writer and political activist Elie Wiesel...The furnaces controlled by the soldiers are used for throwing people who are alive into to allow them to burn to death. The prisoners describe the concentration camps as cold, horrid, unsanitary, and frightening.
The setting also influences the actions of the prisoners. The prisoners which included Jews, homosexuals, and gypsies learned to step outside their room witnessing thousands of dead bodies sprawled in every direction. Their deaths resulting from anything- rape, weakness, cold, gun shots, burns, etc. The smell of death became accustomed to all prisoners and the taste of good food was merely impossible. The prisoners endured hardship and loss in faith. Due to the setting, each prisoner learned to survive independently and even became animalistic towards one another. The furnaces and areas used to hang people caused many prisoners to question their faith, in...