Presentation Type
Oral/Paper Presentation
Abstract
Many readers who are familiar with the Jewish Holocaust are also familiar with Elie Wiesel’s Night. While many tragedies testify of villains and victims, Night’s testimony on these two elements is unclear. Night is riddled with shame, and Elie often sees himself as a perpetrator in his own suffering. With this misplaced shame, Wiesel partakes in a “confession” at the end of Night. This paper explores each of Wiesel’s “villains” and theorizes the psychological motivations behind each indictment. It gives special interest to the prevalence of victim shame in Holocaust survivor testimony, building on existing research about contributing elements such as Nazi propaganda methods and similarity with the shame of sexual assault survivors.
Faculty Mentor
Dr. Willie Steele
Recommended Citation
Hollans, Naomi, "Victims Playing Villains: Subjects of Blame in Elie Wiesel's "Night"" (2025). Student Scholar Symposium. 157.
https://digitalcollections.lipscomb.edu/student_scholars_symposium/2025/Full_schedule/157
Included in
Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons, Holocaust and Genocide Studies Commons, Jewish Studies Commons, Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons, Other English Language and Literature Commons, Other History Commons
Victims Playing Villains: Subjects of Blame in Elie Wiesel's "Night"
Many readers who are familiar with the Jewish Holocaust are also familiar with Elie Wiesel’s Night. While many tragedies testify of villains and victims, Night’s testimony on these two elements is unclear. Night is riddled with shame, and Elie often sees himself as a perpetrator in his own suffering. With this misplaced shame, Wiesel partakes in a “confession” at the end of Night. This paper explores each of Wiesel’s “villains” and theorizes the psychological motivations behind each indictment. It gives special interest to the prevalence of victim shame in Holocaust survivor testimony, building on existing research about contributing elements such as Nazi propaganda methods and similarity with the shame of sexual assault survivors.
Comments
Naomi's paper explores one of the most widely read and critically analyzed texts from the Holocaust literature canon: Elie Wiesel's "Night." What this paper adds to the scholarly discussion, however, is a close reading that focuses on the types of villains about whom Wiesel writes while presenting various motivations for each. Her foundation of existing scholarship is impressive and exposes a gap that her paper fills quite well.