Elie Wiesel’s Night recounts his horrifying experiences as a Jewish boy under Nazi control, and the effect the Holocaust had, not just for the Jews, but to overall to humanity. The disturbing disregard for human beings, still to this day, induces consternation, and the Nazis’ gruesome actions has scarred mankind eternally. The Jews, as Elie Wiesel describes in Night, had to overcome numerous difficulties: they are forced to abandon their homes, all their personal possessions, and eventually their humanity. The Jews were separated from their families, Such as Elie, who never saw his mother and sister Tzipora again. Elie's suffered in the concentration camp of Auschwitz for 4 years before finally being liberated, having his faith shaken and …show more content…
lost his innocence, as shown in this quote, “I too had become a different person. The student of Talmud, the child I was, had been consumed by the flames. All that was left was a shape that resembled me. My soul had been invaded – and devoured – by a black flame” (). This quotes was Elie’s reaction of spending one night the concentration camp. The experience has completely altered Elie’s identity, and prematurally taking away his innocence, becoming no longer a child, but as a survivor, and causing a loss in his faith of God’s justice. He is simply a prisoner, as well as his fellow Jews who in addition, have all lost their identities, by being stripped of the individuality they formerly had. Wiesel’s main purpose is to describe the horrifying scenarios and feelings he faced and suffered through as a repressed Jew in the Holocaust.
His tone and diction are powerful for this subject and envelope the reader, as he uses many forms of figurative language to convey his purpose. The use of such descriptive literary language still poses an obstacle to understanding the true nature of his experiences, although his tone with the figurative language provides us with many shockingly detailed images. Elie Wiesel’s use of irony is a predominant part of his memoir. There are different forms of irony, and Night encompasses the three types of irony: dramatic irony, situational irony, and verbal …show more content…
Irony. Dramatic irony is “a relationship of contrast between a character's limited understanding of his or her situation in some particular moment of the unfolding action and what the audience, at the same instant, understands the character's situation actually to be” (). In order for dramatic irony to occur, some amount of consciousness must be concurrently aware from both perspectives. Night encompasses the feelings the Jewish community had with the author's use of dramatic irony. Despite the inhumane conditions that persisted throughout the Holocaust, the Jewish society often applicated a sense of hopefulness that persisted the situation would no longer get any worse. “Our fear and anguish were at an end. We were living among Jews, among brothers…” (). This type of irony demonstrates the inability of the Jewish community to confront and accept the truth of the situation. The reality they were not aware of was their journey of anguish and fear had just began to commence. Elie's father remains optimistic, even after the Jews are made to wear the yellow Star of David. "The yellow star? So what? It's not lethal" (), Donning the Star of David, in Eliezer’s father’s perspective, rather than being problematic, brought the Jewish community even closer than before. No one realized that wearing this star would alienate them even further. The purpose of dramatic irony is to create a sense of foreshadowing and also induce Elie Wiesel’s tone.The author wanted to show that the Jewish community, led by his father, was in denial, and decided to remain irrationally hopeful rather than prepare for the truth of the upcoming events. Madame Schachter's outburst is another example of dramatic irony, as well as foreshadowing. Throughout the journey to Auschwitz, she keep screaming and stated "Look! Look at this fire! This terrible fire! Have mercy on me!" (). Everyone in the train had thought she had gone delirious, similar to their reaction to Moshe the Beadle, and the passengers tied her up and gagged her, hoping she'd quiet down. The Jews didn’t believe her, and it would be revealed later on that the "great fire" she envisioned turned out to be one of the many crematoriums that was ubiquitous throughout the time Wiesel spent in the camps which took many of their lives. Situational irony is an outcome that is significantly different than what was expected.
This type of irony involves a situation in which actions have an effect that opposing from what was initially intended, so that the outcome is contrary to what was anticipated.When the Buna camp was threatened to be reached and liberated by the Red Army, the prisoners were evacuated the next morning. At this time Elie was in the hospital, and was certain he would likely be killed by the time the SS army was ready to leave, as a sick prisoner would slow the rest of the group down, and was worthless to them. Elie then decides to join the ranks and leave with the rest of the evacuees. Elie learns in post, “after the war the fate of those who had stayed behind in the hospital. They were quite simply liberated by the Russians two days after the evacuation” (). This quote is very ironic in a depressing way because it was unexpected that those who remained at the infirmary would be liberated, and Elie ultimately chose more cruelty and suffering by deciding to follow the others. The situational irony of Wiesel bandwagoning off popular opinion, when the situation could have been a lot smoother otherwise, is a numbing sensation of devastation. As a result, the evacuation of Auschwitz rather than immediately leading to their freedom, the Jews were imprisoned for another three months instead of being liberated by the Red Army. Elie Wiesel shows situational irony in other forms other than only
negative. "But as they [new shoes] were covered with a thick coat of mud, they had not been noticed. I thanked God... for having created mud in his infinite and wondrous universe." The mud that the Jews were required to live in, which was never intended to be helpful, became a sudden advantage to Elie. He was able to own warm and comfortable shoes because the filthy mud prevented them from being spotted, and eventually being taken away. Verbal irony is when “the speaker intends to be understood as meaning something that contrasts with the literal or usual meaning of what he says. This allows the author, Elie Wiesel, to expose the discrepancies of facts. Wiesel is able to show irony through verbal irony because he can do more such a compare and contrast and it can help develop a point of view. "I've got more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He's the only one who's kept his promise, all his promises, to the Jewish people" (). The context of this quote was that it was spoken by an old man in the hospital bed next to Elie. Elie, at first is furious at the man for comparing his faith in Hitler to God. The reality of the situation was that the man didn’t believe in Hitler, but instead lost faith in God for not being there for him. However, Elie is not shaken and continues to allow his faith in God to rest within him, because he is loyal to his belief. This is obvious irony because Hitler is the man in charge of ordering the exterminations of the Jews. There are two similar quotes that produce the same effect of irony, "...we saw the barbed wire of another camp. An iron door with this inscription over it: 'Work is liberty!' Auschwitz" (), "Work or crematorium - the choice is yours" (). Although the first quote does not necessarily entail a speaker, the concentration camp, Auschwitz, makes this potent, since in reality the camps purposes was to hold Jews captive. There is no liberty or freedom in slavery. This is also ironic since Jews were already free before they were imprisoned. The death camps murdered countless Jews, which there is no liberty in that. The SS officers, such as the one who spoke the second quote, purposed to the Jews choice. The Jews never very little power over their fate, no matter the option.
Did you know you could kill 6,000,000, and capture about 1 million people in one lifetime? In “Night” Elie Wiesel talks about the life of one of those 7 million people, going into detail about the living conditions, and also talking about the experiences in the book that happened to him. The book explains how it felt to be in a concentration camp, and how it changed a person so much you couldn’t tell the difference between the dead and the living. Elie Wiesel is the author and he was only around 15 when this story happened, so this is his story and how the events in the story changed him. So in the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel, the main character, “Elie,” is affected by the events in the book such as losing faith, becoming immune to death, and emotionally changing throughout the course of the book.
Elie Wiesel writes about his personal experience of the Holocaust in his memoir, Night. He is a Jewish man who is sent to a concentration camp, controlled by an infamous dictator, Hitler. Elie is stripped away everything that belongs to him. All that he has worked for in his life is taken away from him instantly. He is even separated from his mother and sister. On the other side of this he is fortunate to survive and tell his story. He describes the immense cruel treatment that he receives from the Nazis. Even after all of the brutal treatment and atrocities he experiences he does not hate the world and everything in it, along with not becoming a brute.
Night by Elie Wiesel was a memoir on one of the worst things to happen in human history, the Holocaust. A terrible time where the Nazi German empire started to take control of eastern Europe during WWII. This book tells of the terrible things that happened to the many Jewish people of that time. This time could easily change grown men, and just as easily a boy of 13. Elie’s relationship with God and his father have been changed forever thanks to the many atrocities committed at that time.
Wiesel appeals to logos, ethos, and pathos in Night. The reader’s logic is not so much directly appealed to, but indirectly the description of the events causes the reader to...
In the 1930s-1940s, the Nazis took millions of Jews into their death camps. They exterminated children, families, and even babies. Elie Wiesel was one of the few who managed to live through the war. However, his life was forever scarred by things he witnessed in these camps. The book Night explained many of the harsh feelings that Elie Wiesel experienced in his time in various German concentration camps.
However, the servant to a Dutchman was not like this at all. He was loved by all and, "He had the face of a sad angel." (Wiesel 42). However, when the power station that the child worked at blew up, he was tortured for information. But the child refused to speak and was sentenced to death by hanging.
Upon analysis of Night, Elie Wiesel’s use of characterization and conflict in the memoir helps to illustrate how oppression and dehumanization can affect one’s identity by describing the actions of the Nazis and
The significance of night throughout the novel Night by Elie Wiesel shows a poignant view into the daily life of Jews throughout the concentration camps. Eliezer describes each day as if there was not any sunshine to give them hope of a new day. He used the night to symbolize the darkness and eeriness that were brought upon every Jew who continued to survive each day in the concentration camps. However, night was used as an escape from the torture Eliezer and his father had to endure from the Kapos who controlled their barracks. Nevertheless, night plays a developmental role of Elie throughout he novel.
Many themes exist in Night, Elie Wiesel’s nightmarish story of his Holocaust experience. From normal life in a small town to physical abuse in concentration camps, Night chronicles the journey of Wiesel’s teenage years. Neither Wiesel nor any of the Jews in Sighet could have imagined the horrors that would befall them as their lives changed under the Nazi regime. The Jews all lived peaceful, civilized lives before the German occupation. Eliezer Wiesel was concerned with mysticism and his father was “more involved with the welfare of others than with that of his own kin” (4).
People often shudder at the thought of the Holocaust. During this gruesome time nearly six million Jews, and an additional five million non- Jewish victims, including gypsies, homosexuals, and handicapped, were inhumanely murdered by the Nazis. There was no escape from the brutality of the German dictator, Adolf Hitler. The Holocaust was Hitler’s effort to exterminate any person he believed to be inferior. Anyone deemed fit for the title was lugged away to concentration camps, then sentenced to obligatory labor or demise. Now, imagine this as a comedy. The notion that such an event could be portrayed as a comedy seems unfathomable. However, director Robert Benigni is able to take this occurrence and apply a comedic sense in order to set the
The Holocaust will forever be known as one of the largest genocides ever recorded in history. 11 million perished, and 6 million of the departed were Jewish. The concentration camps where the prisoners were held were considered to be the closest one could get to a living hell. There is no surprise that the men, women, and children there were afraid. One was considered blessed to have a family member alongside oneself. Elie Wiesel was considered to be one of those men, for he had his father working side by side with him. In the memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel, a young boy and his father were condemned to a concentration camp located in Poland. In the concentration camps, having family members along can be a great blessing, but also a burden. Elie Wiesel shows that the relationship with his father was the strength that kept the young boy alive, but was also the major weakness.
In the memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel remembers his time at Auschwitz during the Holocaust. Elie begins to lose his faith in God after his faith is tested many times while at the concentration camp. Elie conveys to us how horrific events have changed the way he looks at his faith and God. Through comments such as, “Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God, my soul, and turned my dreams into dust,” he reveals the toll that the Holocaust has taken on him. The novel begins during the years of 1942-1944 in Sighet, Transylvannia, Romania. Elie Wiesel and his family are deported and Elie is forced to live through many horrific events. Several events such as deportation, seeing dead bodies while at Auschwitz, and separation from his mother and sisters, make Elie start to question his absolute faith in God.
Elie Wiesel, winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize, wrote Night with the notion for society to advance its understanding of the Holocaust. The underlying theme of Night is faith. Elie Wiesel, for the majority of this work, concerns the faith and survival of his father, Chlomo Wiesel. The concept of survival intertwines with faith, as survival is brought upon Elie’s faith in his father. Both Elie and Chlomo are affected in the same manner as their Jewish society. The self-proclaimed superman race of the German Nazis suppress and ultimately decimate the Jewish society of its time. Elie and Chlomo, alongside their Jewish community, were regarded as subhumans in a world supposedly fit for the Nazi conception. The oppression of Elie and Chlomo begins in 1944, when the Germans constrain the Jews of Sighet into two ghettos. During the time of Nazi supremacy, Elie and Chlomo are forced to travel to various concentration camps, including Birkenau, Auschwitz, and Buchenwald.
Elie’s loss of innocence and childhood lifestyle is very pronounced within the book, Night. This book, written by the main character, Elie Wiesel, tells the readers about the experiences of Mr. Wiesel during the Holocaust. The book starts off by describing Elie’s life in his hometown, Sighet, with his family and friends. As fascism takes over Hungary, Elie and his family are sent north, to Auschwitz concentration camp. Elie stays with his father and speaks of his life during this time. Later, after many stories of the horrors and dehumanizing acts of the camp, Elie and his father make the treacherous march towards Gliewitz. Then they are hauled to Buchenwald by way of cattle cars in extremely deplorable conditions, even by Holocaust standards. The book ends as Elie’s father is now dead and the American army has liberated them. As Elie is recovering in the hospital he gazes at himself in a mirror, he subtly notes he much he has changed. In Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie loses his innocence and demeanour because he was traumatized by what he saw in the camps, his loss of faith in a God who stood idly by while his people suffered, and becoming selfish as he is forced to become selfish in the death camps to survive.
When people are placed in difficult, desolate situations, they often change in a substantial way. In Night by Elie Wiesel, the protagonist, Elie, is sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp where he undergoes many devastating experiences. Due to these traumatic events, Elie changes drastically, losing his passion in God, becoming disconnected with his father, and maturing when it matters most.