Figurative Language In Night By Elie Wiesel

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.

When dealing with Non-Fiction and Memoir it is imperative to realize that no two authors will approach telling their story in the same manner. Elie Weisel and Charlotte Delbo, two survivors of Auschwitz, both chose to write their Memoir as testimonials of their experiences. Despite sharing a method of testimonial and similar experiences in their stories, the two finished pieces are nearly entirely different. This paper will focus on Elie Weisel’s method of reporting his experiences to the reader, as opposed to a brief discussion on Delbo who tends to reflect. The scene of focus in the comparison and contrast will be the arrival scene as the authors enter into Auschwitz. This is a universal scene that would have been similar for everyone that entered into the camp, so it is what I call a unique shared experience, as everyone’s experiences will of course vary. But, aside from being a common experience it is also a common primary reflective moment that both authors spend quite a bit of time discussing.

Imagine not knowing where you’re going, if you’ll survive the night, or if you’ll ever see your family again. After Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933, the lives of millions of innocent Jews were placed into the hands of the Nazi Party. In the book Night, Elie Wiesel uses his personal experiences to tell about his life during Holocaust and the horrific events he witnessed. The author uses foreshadowing to strengthen the plot and give the reader clues to the atrocities he goes through during his two years in the concentration camp.

Elie Wiesel uses several types of figurative language in Night. In his novel, Elie’s use of symbolism is most important in helping the reader understand the horrors of his experience during the Holocaust.

In Elie Wiesel 's novel “Night,” we find the horrific life story of a father and son during the period of the devastating Holocaust. Elie and his father need to unite in order to survive through the excruciation. We find a transition of indifference by Elie during his Nobel Peace Prize. From his love for life to not caring about anything, Elie matures as the book progresses. He learns to value his father and stick together. In “Night,” Elie Weisel utilizes the fear of surviving in the concentration camps and allows himself to mature and undergoes the struggles which leave the future generations to witness and remember the atrocities of the Holocaust.

Night by Elie Wiesel is an autobiography about his experience during the Holocaust when he was fifteen years old. Elie is fifteen when the tragedy begins. He is taken with his family through many trials and then is separated from everyone besides his father. They are left with only each other, of which they are able to confide in and look to for support. The story is told through a series of creative writing practices. Mr. Wiesel uses strong diction, and syntax as well as a combination of stylistic devices. This autobiography allows the readers to understand a personal, first-hand account of the terrible events of the holocaust. The ways that diction is used in Night helps with this understanding.

As said by Audrey Hepburn; “Living is like tearing through a museum, not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering - because you can’t take it in all at once.” In Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, the Holocaust took place in an order of layers. As time passed, the extremity was increased each chapter he succumbed to. Elie expresses raw emotion in his memoir, Night, and leaves you in a complete, utter state of wonder and sadness. Not only this, but remembering and cherishing the importance of all the emotions from this time in history. In Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, the theme of remembering is present before the Holocaust and in today’s society.

My first example of figurative language in Night, is of Dramatic irony early on in the book. Wiesel talks about doubting Hitler’s resolve to eradicate the Jewish people from the earth.

The terrors of the Holocaust are unimaginably destructive as described in the book Night by Elie Wiesel. The story of his experience about the Holocaust is one nightmare of a story to hear, about a trek from one’s hometown to an unknown camp of suffering is a journey of pain that none shall forget. Hope and optimism vanished while denial and disbelief changed focus during Wiesel’s journey through Europe. A passionate relationship gradually formed between the father and the son as the story continued. The book Night genuinely demonstrates how the Holocaust can alter one's spirits and relations.

In the American memoir, Night, Nobel Peace Prize-winning author Elie Wiesel constructs a story about the horrific events he endured during the Holocaust. In the pages of this memoir, he portrays the life of Eliezer, a child born Jewish. In the later chapters of the book, Eliezer endures the tragic hanging of a pipel who lost his life for not giving up the names of the inmates that worked to sabotage the power plant at Buna, a forced labor camp in Germany. The guards forced Eliezer and his father to walk past the child as he hung from the gallows stuck between life and death. The death of the child signifies the death of Eliezer’s faith. The author used this position in the memoir to signify the end of the main character’s religious views, which makes this the climax of the book. The climax fits into the structure of the memoir at this point by staying consistent in word choice and advancing the plot further. The use of the appeals and tone also ties this scene into the plot. However, each translation utilizes these devices differently. The scholar’s translation focuses on ethos, logos, and a helpless tone. Marion’s translation uses pathos and a bitter tone. Marion’s version more effectively uses the appeals and tone because it conveys more emotion to the reader.

At first glance, Night, by Eliezer Wiesel does not seem to be an example of deep or emotionally complex literature. It is a tiny book, one hundred pages at the most with a lot of dialogue and short choppy sentences. But in this memoir, Wiesel strings along the events that took him through the Holocaust until they form one of the most riveting, shocking, and grimly realistic tales ever told of history’s most famous horror story. In Night, Wiesel reveals the intense impact that concentration camps had on his life, not through grisly details but in correlation with his lost faith in God and the human conscience.

The Holocaust was a horrific time period when over six million Jewish people were systematically exterminated by the Nazi government. Throughout this period, the Jews were treated particularly inhumane because the Nazi viewed their ethnicities as a disease to humanity. Dehumanization is a featured theme in Elie Wiesel’s novel about the Holocaust since he demonstrated numerous examples of the severe conditions endured by the Jewish people. The nonfiction story Night by Elie Wiesel focuses on inhumanity and reveals human beings are capable of committing great atrocities and behaving cruelly, when such actions are condoned by society, peer pressure, and ethical beliefs. Elie Wiesel uses literary devices to produce a consistent theme of inhumanity.

The title ‘Night’ has played a huge role on what goes on behind the story by Elie Wiesel during the Holocaust. Figuratively, the title night is for the loss of innocence, hope, and many beliefs. In literal terms, the night resembles a time of gathering, recollecting, and even murder. When Elie came up with the title ‘Night’, the title wasn’t supposed to be taken only in a literal sense, but also in a figurative sense. For example, since the Holocaust, Elie has had to adapt to growing up at an adolescent stage in his life representing night as the loss of innocence.

In Night, Elie Wiesel uses metaphors, similes, and imagery to illustrate the diabolical and inhumane occurrences during this harsh time period. Within the

Night is a novel written by Eliezer Wiesel. Throughout the novel, Wiesel recreates the horrific experiences that he had endured in the time period of the Holocaust. You can see how the unbearable experiences in Auschwitz had changed Elie. His mindset had completely transformed over time. The reenactment of many events depicts many themes/symbols.