Examples Of Dehumanization In Night By Elie Wiesel

Often authors write novels about their own traumatic experiences to inform readers about how brutal and inhuman mankind can be. In the memoir Night, the author Elie Wiesel narrates about his daily life starting in 1944 when he began living in different concentration camps struggling to survive the Holocaust, the mass killing of 6 million Jews as well as millions of other innocent people . The Nazi’s reason for killing the innocent was due to their race and religion. Most people are aware of the incidents that occurred during this particular time period, but what some people don’t know is how terrible the prisoners were really treated. Nothing has caused more pain and suffering for man than man himself.

When someone is face to face with atrocious acts and cruel treatments, any regular human being could transform into the meanest of brutes. The people who were tortured, abused, neglected, and or stripped of their very own dignity leading to self-preservation by any possible means necessary, even if it meant forgetting those who they love just to survive on their own terms. Because of this, there are people who also become desensitized towards brutality and inhumanity that occurs around them. In the Holocaust novel, “Night,” the young Elie Wiesel has succumb to a scarring fate; he has witnessed a countless amount of people being tortured, neglected, abused, and even killed, but he showed little emotion, he experienced many fleeting thoughts that raced through his head about how life for him would be a lot easier without his father dragging him down and he was relieved and felt freedom when

It seems that whenever the Holocaust is thought of, the main focus is on the question of how humans could inflict this awfulness on other humans. The effect this tragedy had on the Jewish survivors is rarely thought of. The idea of dehumanizing someone until they are completely different than who they were before is prevalent throughout the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel. In this memoir, Wiesel writes about his horrifying experiences as a Jew during the Holocaust and illustrates throughout the novel how this entire experience had life changing effects on him. Although some might believe that dehumanization cannot completely change a person, Wiesel demonstrates the effects of being treated as less than human to prove that this inhumane treatment

“Faster, you tramps, you flea-ridden dogs!” (Wiesel 85). An SS officer yells at the Jews while they are being forced to run over forty miles of land. The officers treated these people as if they were animals and as if they meant nothing. The Jews were tossed and beaten as if they were sacks of flour. Dehumanization can be best defined as the process of depriving a person or group of positive human qualities. Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, is forced to experience many forms of dehumanization throughout his book. Throughout Elie WIesel’s, Night, the SS officers dehumanization toward the Jews increases in severity and causes the Jews to lose their will to live as they travel to different locations.

One example of this is when Ellie was doing his death run. Now during the end of WW2, the Nazis chose to do death runs. Death Runs are long runs in whatever weather happening. If Jews stop even for the slightest second the Jews were shot on the spot. These death runs tested the mental and physical limits of the Jews. This relates to dehumanization because the Nazis treated the Jews horrible. A quote from the text to back this up is “ Faster, you tramps, you flea-ridden dogs.” (Wiesel,85). This show how the Nazis had no care for the Jews. Which overall really makes the Jews feel

Dehumanization is to deprive of human qualities such as individuality, compassion, or civility. In Elie Wiesel’s Night, Wiesel’s experiences of dehumanization are reflected through starvation, physical abuse, and mental abuse. Wiesel was put through dehumanization many times in the book Night. The other Jews were put through dehumanization also. Let’s get into more detail about how they were dehumanized.

Holocaust survivor, American- Romanian Writer, Elie Wiesel in his descriptive Speech, “The Perils of Indifference,” suggests that indifference is treacherous. He supports his message by highlighting the horrible reasonings of genocides such as: “World Wars,” “Civil wars,” and “assassinations.” Moreover, after contemplating the context of Wiesel's speech it grants the audience a greater understanding, of how indifference ruined the lives of many. Wiesel’s purpose is to inform the audience that indifference is seductive and one of the worst feelings; in order to paint a picture in the reader's mind to continue to hope for a world without indifference. He establishes a hopeful tone for the readers by using stylistic devices such as imagery, remembrance, and pathos, in order to develop Wiesel's; message about the inhumanity of difference and the importance of resistance is still relevant today.

In Elie Wiesel’s “Night”, dehumanization is a steady theme throughout Night, consistently taking place as the Nazis persecute the Jewish community. The Nazis erected concentration camps which would slowly eat away at those imprisoned in them. The prisoners would lose their sense of humanity, faith and sometimes, even their will to live. Rabbis turned against God, sons betrayed their fathers all because of the psychological torment the camp inflicted upon them. The Nazis had a number of cruel ways they used to dehumanize the Jews including beating, forced labor, starvation, murder, separation of families and so much more. One of our greatest rights is our humanity, and the Nazis forcibly took it from each Jewish prisoner that walked through their doors. Throughout “Night”, Wiesel recounts the horrible dehumanization him and his fellow Jews endured at the hands of the Nazis.

Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel in his formal speech,”The Perils of Indifference,” asserts that indifference has causes all tragedy in the past, present, and will continue to terrorize humanity in the future if we do not stop it. He develops his message through examples of what indifference specifically causes. Any wars or serious events like Kennedy’s assassination, WW I&II, etc. He describes these as “failures” that “cast” a “dark shadow” over “humanity” (par. 5). Also, Wiesel shares personal anecdotes in order to give his specific point of view at the scene of something like the Holocaust. His story with the “Muselmanner” illustrates that these prisoners were left to die in the corner of buildings and they eventually “stared vacantly into space” and they were “dead” but “they did not know it.” Ultimately, he ends with his prospects of the future. He hopes that humans abolish indifference for the sake of their own humanity. Wiesel’s purpose is to ultimately warn his audience into stopping the progression of indifference in order to stop the growth of foreign and domestic hostility. He establishes a serious tone for readers by using stylistic devices and rhetorical devices such as repetition, pathos, and rhetorical questions in order to develop his message that the inhumanity of indifference and the importance of resistance is still relevant today.

Inspirational speech,Elie Wiesel in his enjoyable speech, “The perils of Indifference” claims that although indifferent could be quite terrifying. He supports his message by revealing all the tragedies that was happening at the time. Indifference is not just a ¨punishment¨ but, a ¨sin¨ as well. Indifference causes torture and what makes a person¨”inhuman¨. Wiesel´s purpose is to persuade where there´s no indifference to be afraid about in order to inspire accomplishing a way around indifference. He establishes a thoughtful tone for readers by using stylistic devices such as imagery, parallelism, and metaphors in order to develope his message that as long as indifference surrounds the world we are human .

Dehumanization is something that everyone in the camps went through. They were treated like less than dirt in the camps. Elie Wiesel fought it through the love for his father. It was his motivation to keep moving and survive. Elie faced constant verbal and physical abuse in the camp, so much so that it was considered abnormal not to be verbally and physically abused.

Jews were severely impoverished over a long duration. A Jew was diminished water, deprived food, segregated from their families, all of which are fundamental human requirements – the result was an entity that did not appear nor act human. Upon arrival at Auschwitz camp, the first death-centre Elie endures, he describes the veteran inmates as “strange-looking creatures, dressed in striped jackets and black pants” as if they are some foreign species. In light of that Elie is a Jew just like the inmates, his point of view is illustrative of the considerable extent to which prisoners were physically dehumanised. In fact, after liberation, Elie decides to “look at” himself “in the mirror on the opposite wall”, and “from the depths of the mirror”, he describes “a corpse” contemplating him. This is a moment of lucidity for Elie since he had no conscious of the measured fashion by which he was dehumanised, the “look on” his reflection’s “face has never left” him. Wiesel purposely silences detailed description of himself as there was no need for description, the situation speaks for itself, of what he had physically been transformed

The story Night written by Elie Wiesel, is a testimony to his life, others lives’, and a time in history that should never be forgotten. In this essay I will address the topic of dehumanization and how it played a part in the Holocaust. Dehumanization is the process Hitler used to eliminate the Jews. The concept behind this was to reduced the Jews to nothing more that property and slaves. The ultimate goal was to wipe out the entire Jewish culture and have nothing remaining of the culture.

For instance, “ I became A-7713 from then on, I had no other name”(Pg 47). This is dehumanizing someone because the SS officers are extracting his natural human right to a name and replacing it with a number that has no meaning. Also another quote is, ” I no longer felt anything except the lashes of the whip….. Only the first one hurt”(Pg 57)] By whipping the jews SS officers dehumanized them by comparing them to cattle because farmers have to whip cattle into getting them to a direction they would like to, which in this case the cattle gets use to the whips and that trains them to understand what it means to get whipped. When getting whipped, the jews are condition to know they are getting out of formation or not cooperating. Throughout the novel Wiesel also, uses forms of physical and psychological warfare to dehumanize the jewish community, psychological by ultimately stripping their faith religion and

Dehumanization is the act of taking one’s human qualities away from them, this can be done using voice and also using actions. During the time of the Holocaust, the Nazi’s used their power to abuse and dehumanize the Jewish people. They would beat and kill them, they would yell at them and they stripped the Jews of their dignity and rights. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, one recurring theme is the dehumanization of the Jews. Throughout Night by Elie Wiesel, one can see the theme of dehumanization through the way the Nazi’s treated the Jews, spoke to the Jews, and how the Jews treated one another.