Examples Of Irony In Night By Elie Wiesel

Opportunities vanish as quickly as they appear. In this case, that means escaping the horrors of the Holocaust. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie and his family were given many chances to escape their dark fate that awaits them. The opportunities to be discussed are Moshe’s deportation and warning to his fellow Jews, the new decrees being issued by the Germans, and Chlomo’s friend in the Hungarian police force.

Irony happens in a lot of places in the stories Flowers for Algernon and The Necklace. Irony happens in The Necklace when Mathilde loses her friends Necklace she bought a 36 thousand franc necklace. Meanwhile, the necklace that she actually lost was only worth about 500 francs. In The Necklace, the irony is shown when “Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took her hands. “Oh, my poor Mathilde! But mine was imitation. It was at the very most five hundred francs!..” (Maupassant, 5). It is ironic that she spent ten years paying for something that was worth less than the necklace that she bought to replace the false necklace with. There is also irony in Flowers for Algernon when Charlie is unhappy due to the operation that

Wiesel. “The yellow star? So what? It’s not lethal” (Wiesel, 11). In this line, Elie tells his father that the yellow star that the jews are forced to put on is not lethal, what does it foreshadow? It foreshadows that the star actually is a lethal symbol and foreshadows the death of those who bear it. “I knew that I no longer argued with him, but with Death itself, with death, he had already chosen” (Wiesel, 105). This foreshadows the death of Elie’s father in a sad tone. Night uses foreshadowing to hint towards further

Irony is a very big part of a story, because it can create new elements in a story. Some of these elements may include humor and theme. "The Ransom of Red Chief" is a great example for this.

The Holocaust, or a jewish sacrificial offering that is burned on an alter, largely refers to the massacre and slaughter of over 6 million european jews from 1933 to 1945. One of the largest genocides took place less than 100 years ago. A recently fresh event on the historical timeline, and yet there would be little known on exactly went on inside the camps without the testimonies of survivors. Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, produced the book “Night” as a way to cope with his time in the labor camps and to shed light on the reality of the inhumanity that engulfed numerous concentration camps across europe. After ten years of silence, the book was written by Wiesel to express his personal experiences inside the labor camps, as well as his testimony to horrifying and inhumane actions inflicted upon his beloved family and bunk mates. In “Night”, Elie Wiesel explores the evils in humanity by sharing his personal experiences and personal witness of inhumanity, and shares his own moral values of man.

Elie Wiesel has experienced a horrible tragedy. When he repeatedly says over and over “Never shall I forget…” he emphasizes his fear of what he has seen. He drills into the reader how traumatized he is. This creates sympathy and makes the reader feel worse for Mr. Wiesel. Dramatic irony gives the reader an advantage over the characters. This form of irony is where the reader knows something that the characters do not. “(Poor father! Of what then did you die?)” (page 11) During this scene in the book Elie's father has given the news to the other Jews that they are all required to wear the yellow star. His father said “‘ The yellow star? So what? It’s not lethal…’” (page 11) This is ironic because the star is what killed nearly all of the Jewish people. Hate killed a countless number of innocent people because of their beliefs. This is the dramatic Irony. Everything that Elie Wiesel uses to create his autobiography makes it more that just a page taught

As an additional component of my dissertation, I have selected three quotes from Elie Wiesel’s Night which deeply resonated with me.

Irony is described by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “the incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result”. “Ransom of the Red Chief”, as short story written by O. Henry, is full of all types of irony. In this short story a boy, Johnny Dorset, is taken by two kidnappers, Sam and Bill. Ironically, by the end of the story it is the kidnappers who pay ransom to the father. In “Ransom of the Red Chief”, there are many examples of irony which help to enhance the story. Throughout this tale, there are multiple examples of situational, dramatic, and verbal irony.

There are good examples of verbal and situational irony in Elsie Wiesel's memoir Night. Verbal irony occurs when words are used to suggest the opposite of what is meant. It is grimly ironic when, after the Jews are ordered to wear yellow stars, Elise’s father says, "The yellow star? Oh well, what of it? You don't die of it..." The statement is ironic because that is precisely how Elise’s father died. The wearing of the yellow star was one step on the path to the concentration camps and almost certain death. After almost a year in the camps, Elise’s father dies from dysentery at Buchenwald.

Irony, a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result. Throughout Night there is use of situational and verbal irony. This use of irony keeps the reader interested. The use of irony causes the reader to know things that the characters often are not aware of.

Irony is a useful device for giving stories many unexpected twists and turns. In Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour," irony is used as an effective literary device. Situational irony is used to show the reader that what is expected to happen sometimes doesn't. Dramatic irony is used to clue the reader in on something that is happening that the characters in the story do not know about. Irony is used throughout Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" through the use of situational irony and the use of dramatic irony.

The Nazis did everything in their power to dehumanize the inmates in the concentration camps during the holocaust. Night follows the story of a member of the Jewish community, Eliezer Wiesel. This book is Eliezer’s retelling of his experience in the camps, losing his belongings, his family, and finally his humanity.

Wiesel incorporates irony in his novel to create a perpetual theme of inhumanity. It is ironic when, after the Jews are ordered to wear yellow stars, Elie’s father declares, “The yellow star? Oh well, what of it? You don’t die of it…” (11 Wiesel). Verbal irony occurs in this moment because the statement is suggesting the opposite of what is truly expected and meant. The wearing of the yellow star was one step on the pathway of concentration camps which eventually led to almost certain death. Therefore, these actions were very inhumane because Nazis required Jewish people to label themselves with the yellow star, and then transferred them to extermination campgrounds. The author uses figurative language to focus on an adolescent’s perspective on a situation, the Holocaust, where he and those around him are no longer treated as humans.

Irony is usually termed as a technique or way or presenting a topic with one meaning, not disclosing to the reader that a totally different thing has happened. For instance, one might say it is ironic to save up the money to buy your dream car and it sells minutes before you get there. In the mind of someone like Edgar Allan Poe, irony can take one a far deeper meaning. One piece of irony is the name of the victim, Fortunato. This is an Italian word suggesting good fortune. (Cummings, 2005) However, we know from the beginning of the story that his fortune is not good. The more one looks for it, sometimes the more minute the irony can be. Take the description of Fortunato:

People watch other individuals experience irony all the time. When something is ironic it means that the thing that was to happen, did not happen the way it was thought to happen. Sometimes irony happens to those who least expect it or irony happens to everyone. There have been songs, television ads, and stories written about irony or that have included ironic events or details. One piece of literature that contains a lot of irony is Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat”. Crane uses irony in many different ways in the story to tell of four individuals who survive their ship being wrecked and everyone else aboard has drown.