Essay on Intolerance

996 Words2 Pages

Intolerance is the unwillingness or refusal to accept or acknowledge another person’s ideas and/or rights. Intolerance is shown to people due to socio-economic status, level of education and age, but is often and the most common forms of intolerance are racial intolerance (racism) and religious intolerance. Intolerance is conveyed in many texts through a number of literary and visual techniques and is demonstrated in the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, cartoon Tweets on Religious Intolerance by Angelo Lopez and Snake by DH Lawrence. Night by Elie Wiesel is a fiction memoir following the protagonist Eliezer, who is a stand-in character for the author, and his family in their journey through concentration camps in the Holocaust. The book mainly explores religious intolerance and within this explores man’s inhumanity to man through Wiesel’s sustained figurative language and descriptive imagery. At the beginning of the book Eliezer and his family are moved via cattle cars with other Jewish people. Towards the second half of the book an Eliezer and his father are once again transported on cattle cars through several German towns. On both trips the Jewish people were vilified and treated like animals by the German soldiers. Wiesel uses the sustained figurative language using words such as ‘dogs’ and other animalistic references throughout the text to demonstrate how in the eyes of the soldiers they are no longer seen as people. ‘You will all be shot like dogs’. Descriptive imagery is also used to explain how the civilians were also inhumane to the prisoners, with a description of the prisoners being ‘beasts of prey unleashed…sharpening their teeth and nails’ as the citizens spurred it on. This explains the inhumanity that not only the s... ... middle of paper ... ...iddle. Language techniques have been used with the several words that are displayed on characters shirts and objects. These words enhance the anger and ferocity of the text. Spiteful words such as ‘kill’, ‘blame’ and ‘sinners’ are repeated throughout the image, empowering the body language and visual techniques that the text demonstrates. The novel Night by Elie Wiesel, cartoon Tweets on Religious Intolerance by Angelo Lopez and Snake by DH Lawrence all display different forms of intolerance that is present in our society. Religious and racial intolerance is demonstrated via a number of literary and visual techniques such as figurative language and composition. Through the use of these techniques, the composers have each been able to present a new aspect of intolerance and teach the reader about inhumanities and cruelty that are imposed on the people around us.

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