Elie Wiesel Language Analysis

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Prompt: Does Wiesel succeed in conveying his experience to any degree? Which resources of language influence your response? Wiesel succeeds in working to make stories of the Holocaust on through his own personal experience and perspective as a Holocaust survivor. Wiesel’s stories and memories as a survivor is notably expressed through repetition and motifs. Wiesel’s use of repetition demonstrates how the Holocaust and others peoples’ struggles continue to haunt him. For example, “They are thirsty, the children, and there is no one to give them water. They are hungry, but there is no one to give them a crust of bread. They are afraid, and there is no one to reassure. All these children, these old people, I see them. I never stop seeing them. …show more content…

His ultimate purpose of writing is “to help the dead vanquish death,” or to help the victims’ spirits, legacies, and stories live on. His chilling stories work to remind readers the importance of remembrance. Despite numerous, chilling descriptions of trying to survive the Holocaust as an “inferior race,” Wiesel will never be able to perfectly convey anyone’s experience during Hitler’s reign of power. The Holocaust consisted of terror and cruelty for 12 years, and writers will never be able to share with others what it was truly like. When reading a short story, novel, or series, readers never truly live the story. They will read gripping details, but they can close the piece and return to normalcy. The pain and life-altering trauma Holocaust survivors endured for the rest of their lives can never be truly understood by people who weren’t there. Although Wiesel will never be able to completely convey his experience during the Holocaust, he succeeded in reminding people the importance of remembering and recognizing the atrocities that took place in the hopes they will never happen

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