Elie Weisel wrote Night ten years after his imprisonment in a German concentration camp in 1944 during World War II. The book was written to tell the story of his experiences there and the experiences of so many others who weren"t as fortunate (though this could be easily debated considering what he went through). Personally for me at first it was very difficult to break the book down into "virtue"s and philosophy," and almost an insult to attempt to analyze it while I have a full stomach and shelter from the cold; especially considering that for thousands of people the world over, not much has changed.

             What I found most appealing about the book is that there was little talk of the grace of god (after the Jews" initial denial), and how nice and happy life is, or really any virtues at all, but rather the absence of virtue in humanity. I enjoyed this book because it was real; because if it isn"t the Holocaust, then it"s Cambodia or the Crusades or the New World or Rwanda. Horrors like this happen everyday, and we as Americans and as humans like to forget that. To me, that is what this book is about. Yes, it is also about how we as humans should treat each other and how we should act, but most of all it is about not forgetting that for every moment, no matter where we are or what we are doing, we must know that someone somewhere is getting their head kicked in. Virtue is really not a fitting word for something so serious. It always made me think of fat guys talking about how great they are, getting fanned and eating grapes. As a general rule it can be said that life isn"t good and people are not good. People are bad. People will rape kill and steal if they can get away with it, and they do. Not to be pessimistic, but to be real and of course, that is the idea of many books about the Holocaust . .

             On the other hand Night does comment on desirable qualities in man, though this is mostly done by showing the opposite quality of the one Weisel is trying to get across.