Nicholas Fouts Quilici Sophomore Honors English 6 Feb 2012 Dehumanization in Night Equality is supposed to be good, but in the

case of the Jewish in Night by Elie Wiesel, equality means dehumanization. A major act of dehumanization, explained my Elie, is when he first arrived at the camp. The orders came: Strip! Hurry up! Raus! Hold on to your belt and your shoes... Our clothes were to be thrown on the floor at the back of the barrack. [...] For us it meant true equality: nakedness. We trembled in the cold (Wiesel 35). By forcing the Jewish to completely strip down, the Nazis are depriving them of their individuality, a predominant human quality, and therefore dehumanizing them. However, Elie describes the act as true equality (Wiesel 35), and the word equality generally has a positive connotation, but when one takes into consideration that acts of equalization can dehumanize a person, the whole feeling of the term changes. The term equality, as used in Elies memoir, becomes a symbol of dehumanization in every way. The symbolism from the quote brings up Wiesels purpose for writing Night, which is to explain how practices that are generally positive such as equality and organization may seem like a logical idea from one point of view but can be devastating, and dehumanizing from the point of view of the society that is being equalized and organized. As a whole, the memoirs theme is that nothing good comes out of dehumanization, from questioning faith, to breeding cruelty from dehumanization. The constant mental and physical deterioration essentially teaches the prisoners that it is every man for himself, and [one] cannot think of others. [...] In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each one lives and dies

alone (Wiesel 110). There is no true benefit to come out of the events that happened during the Holocaust, and there is no good reason for something like the Holocaust to ever happen again.