On page 21 of Night, Elie states that "The stars were but sparks of the immense conflagration that was consuming us. Were this conflagration to...

Elie makes this
observation as Jews are being deported, and his family has settled into the ghetto where the
deported had been living. Promptly, the Jews who are new to the ghetto have forgotten about
those who formerly lived there. It is clear from these words that Elie is becoming hopeless. He
sees stars not as distant sources of light or as something that is eternal and undying. Instead,
he only sees them as an extension of the death and suffering around him. His suffering and the
world he is caught in have extinguished his sense of hope and his sense that there is a wider
world. Instead, his world has only become that of Nazi occupation and the pain and suffering
that await him, his family, and the Jews around him.

He believes that if the
"conflagration," or fire, around him dies out, the stars will be extinct. He no longer
believes that stars can be lit on their own; instead, he believes their light is only an
extension or expression of fire and death. He also believes the heavens are populated with
"unseeing eyes." His faith in a benevolent God has been extinguished. He believes that
God and the world are blind and indifferent to the suffering of the people around
him.