Night, a time of darkness, a time in which dreams turn into nightmares. In Night, a memoir, Elie Wiesel creates a desperate and foreboding mood by using foreshadowing, word choice and repetition. Foreshadowing means to hint at a situation that might occur sometime in the future. Word Choice refers to the specific words the author chooses to use convey thoughts, emotions, strongly. Repetition helps an author make a statement more obvious to the reader.
Foreshadowing is one of the tools Elie Wiesel uses to create the mood. Ms. Schächter yells, “This terrible fire! Have mercy on me!” There is nothing there for her to see, she was hallucinating. The fire refers to how many Jew’s fate was to be burned to death. One person describes Ms. Schächter as, “a withered tree in a field.” Withered tree make the reader think of sickly and malnourished, just like the Jews were during the Holocaust. Wiesel also writes, “We tried to reason with her, more to calm ourselves.” The Jews on the train had only been in
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Ms. Schächter yells, “Fire! I see a fire!” multiple times throughout pages 24 and 25. Wiesel wants the reader to think of fire, and all the danger humans associate with fire. After the woman screams fire the first time, a couple men look to see if she could’ve mistaken light for fire but, alas, there was “only the darkness of night.” When humans think of night, they think dark, lonely and dangerous, all of these thought create a foreboding mood, something frightening alway emerges from the night. Like the concentration camp emerges from the darkness. Wiesel describes the women as if “she were possessed by an evil spirit.” When humans think of darkness they also think evil, they are intertwined. When humans think of being possessed, they also think of evil, which causes them to think something horrible is about to happen, something so evil, it’s not of this
Although, at the same time German SS guards still treat the workers poorly having physically and mentally worked to death. It is to show how the Germans atrociously plan their ideas to exterminate the Jews simply because they are viewed as animals. By using light and dark atmospheres, Wiesel could successfully let the reader understand his overall message.
That is where motifs and other forms of figurative language are of use. Although we can never truly describe the terror of the Holocaust in words, this would be one of the most effective ways of describing it to someone who hasn’t been through it. When writing about an event like the Holocaust, a writer must use all the tools possible if they wish to convey the obscenity of such a crime. In Night, those tools include motifs. Without motifs, Wiesel would be using one less tool to describe the Holocaust, and in doing so, not describing the Holocaust as best as he
(Wiesel 25). When they finally enter the camp and she sees the real smoke coming from the crematorium, this connection becomes obvious. Furthermore, the treatment of Mrs. Schächter also foreshadows the treatment of the people in the camp.
Although there are many different stories about the holocaust, Elie Wiesel's story is very vivid and full of the jarring reality of his experiences. He doesn’t hold back any of the cruelness and torment he was forced to endure as an adolescent. In Night, Elie Wiesel uses repetition, imagery, and symbolism to illustrate the deprivation of his former self during his traumatic experiences during his time in the Nazi work camp.
The first time fire appears in the book is when Madame Schächter screams in terror, claiming that she can see fire from the train. It later becomes known that she received a vision of the horrors that were coming to them in the near future. Fire is also a symbol of cruelty because of its role in the death of millions in the crematoria and in fire pits. Elie witnesses the burning of babies in the beginning of the novel, which is the first time Elie truly understands the severity of the Nazi power. “Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky,” (Wiesel 34).
Often, the theme of a novel extends into a deeper significance than what is first apparent on the surface. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, the theme of night and darkness is prevalent throughout the story and is used as a primary tool to convey symbolism, foreshadowing, and the hopeless defeat felt by prisoners of Holocaust concentration camps. Religion, the various occurring crucial nights, and the many instances of foreshadowing and symbolism clearly demonstrate how the reoccurring theme of night permeates throughout the novel.
The quote “Death, which was settling in all around me, silently, gently. It would seize upon a sleeping person, steal into him and devour him bit by bit.” is found on the last paragraph on page 89 in Night by Elie Wiesel. In the story, the people in the concentration camps ran twenty kilometers in the snow. They were very tired, but they wanted to sleep. Elie Wiesel and his father were going to rest, but Elie could not. If he would fall asleep, he knew he would die. He warned other people, but it worked to no avail. One person wanted all of the suffering to end, and someone else tried to wake up their friend, but it was in vain. This quote uses personification because Death is given human qualities since it surrounded people and “devoured”
In the memoir Night, by Elie Wiesel, the word night is repeatedly used as a metaphor symbolizing the conditions and emotions that the Jews struggle with during the Holocaust. Elie’s personal struggle with his experience evoke connotations of darkness that describe the inhumane treatment that Elie and the Jews are forced to endure throughout the memoir. In the beginning, Elie's town is invaded by German soldiers and soon, the Germans force all of the town's Jews to evacuate. After being thrown onto a freight train to Auschwitz, Elie experiences a whole new world filled with fear and hatred. Elie uses “night” to describe the struggles and hardships that he encounters throughout his experience. The literal meaning of the word night is simply the period of darkness everyday between sunset and sunrise. However, the metaphorical meaning of night, in this memoir, is far more sinister. As depicted in Night, the title metaphorically refers to the evil, hopelessness, and emotional coldness that the Jews are constantly forced to face throughout the Holocaust.
When Elie arrives at the camps, the author begins to use the corpse as a symbol of a living person who is dead inside. This is how Elie begins to see himself and others as, the living dead. "From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me (Wiesel 109)." When Elie looks into the mirror he can not recognize what he has become. He thinks of himself as one of the others who died like his family or the millions of others slaughtered right before his eyes. He essentially becomes a useless body that works on the outside but is undoubtedly damaged on the inside. Wiesel also brings the story to life with imagery that stimulates all of the senses. He illustrates the horror of the crematories with vivid words that make the reader feel the sympathy he feels."Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky. Never shall I forget the flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.
Madame Schachter’s deranged warning was important because she pictured torture would soon happen. “ ‘Fire! I see fire! I see fire!’ ” (Wiesel 24). Her screaming and moaning of the fire the passengers on the train. A group of young men began to beat and gag Mrs. Schachter because her moans were distracting. After long hours in the train, the Jews and Madame Schachter arrived at a camp. “Flames rising from a tall chimney into the black sky” (Wiesel 28). Once the Jews walk in, their amazed and shocked by Mrs. Schachter's premonition. They soon realize the “fire” she was screaming about was right in front of their eyes. “In front of us, those flames. In the air, the smelling of burning flesh. It must have been around midnight, We had arrived, In
Last but not least is the sense of smell which Wiesel used throughout the book by explaining the burners and crematories. “In front of us, those flames. In the air, the smell of burning flesh. It must have been around midnight. We had arrived. In Birkenau” (28, Wiesel). Along with the smell Wiesel had witnessed and heard awful events that took place in the burners. "Over there. Do you see the chimney over there? Do you see it? And the flames, do you see them?" (Yes, we saw the flames.) "Over there, that’s where they will take you. Over there will be your grave. You still don’t understand? You sons of bitches. Don’t you understand anything? You will be burned! Burned into a cinder! Turned to ashes" (30-31, Wiesel). This shows a different tone. It shows fear and worry because does anyone really
Similarly, Elie deliberately uses several instances of foreshadowing as a warning that further develops the dehumanization theme. As the cattle car was approaching Auschwitz concentration camp, Madame Schächter screams, “’Jews listen to me,’ she cried. ‘I see fire! I see flames, huge flames’” (25 Wiesel)! Madame foreshadows the annihilation of millions of Jews being burned alive and dead within the crematoriums located at Auschwitz. Also, her hallucinations predicted the horrific fate of all the Jewish people, who would suffer
Children are murdered. Innocent people are held prisoners. No one knows. The ones who do know do not try to help. This is the story of the Holocaust and the atrocities the Nazis committed.
Many went through insanity, but one person specifically not only went through insanity but also gave a prophecy. That specific person was Mrs. Schachter, from the information of the book, there was no specific background information on Mrs. Schachter , but only that she was woman in her fifties and she had a young son. This women , on their way to the concentration camp, started screaming “fire” throughout the whole ride , but nobody knew why, for there was no visible fire , so they thought she was crazy. However, when they got to the concentration camp, the other prisoners , in the car with Mrs.
Although this fear is always present, within the first couple days all the people help in concentration camps quickly become succumbed to this feeling. After living in the camps for a few days the people come to the realization that, “no longer was any distinction between rich and poor, notables and the others; we were all people condemned to the same fate-still unknown” (21). This shows how even though there were people of higher and lower statuses, nothing mattered once inside the camp each person was just a person, maybe even less. Additionally, this quote evokes a sense of fear of the unknown with the people have no idea about where they are destined to go. Wiesel uses strong descriptive language to better illustrate his journey throughout the novel, giving the reader the ability to really understand the detrimental conditions the people were subject to. Since this whole novel is a memoir and is a true story, it has had a significant impact on our society. It allows people to never forget how many lives were lost during the Holocaust and how many lives were forever changed. This is crucial to our world history because now this book, this story, will forever be remembered and recognized as one that truly happened in real