Human Condition In Night By Elie Wiesel

In the novel Night, Elie Wiesel gives an account about his life in a concentration camp. His focus is of course on his obstacles and challenges while in the camp, but his behavior is an example of how human beings respond to life in a concentration camp. The mood, personality, behavior, and obviously physical changes that occur are well documented in this novel. He also shows, as time wears on, how these changes become more profound and all the more appalling. As the reader follows Elie Wiesel’s story, from his home in the ghetto, to his internment at Auschwitz-Birkenau, to his transfer and eventual release at Buchenwald, one can see the impact of these changes first hand.

Next, Wiesel creates subdue tones to emphasize how the Germans treat the Jews like wild animals and not civilized people. Throughout his memoir, Elie had used several sadden tones to describe everybody’s vulnerable part of being who they are based on their race. The Jews were very vulnerable because they are the main target for Germans to strip out of society. “As they pass through German towns, some of the locals throw bread into the car in order to enjoy watching the Jews kill each other for the food,” (Wiesel 73). This showed non-Jewish locals enjoyed watching Jewish prisoners acting like animals fighting to death for food. This creates an appalling tone to reason why prisoners are acting like feral animals because they fear death and are trying to survive but the Germans will not feed them as they are viewed not superior. In another event, Elie’s father had a colic disease and he politely asked the SS guard where the lavatories are and the SS guard did not reply to his question instead he smacked Elie’s father so hard that he fell to the ground. “As if wanted to convince himself that this man

“Humanity? Humanity is not concerned with us. Today anything is allowed. Anything is possible, even these crematories” (Wiesel 30).

These are used to show drama, side thought, and emotion. “‘The Red Army is advancing with great strides… Hitler will not be able to harm us, even if he wants to…’” (page 8) The author uses ellipses to show side thought, which means that more was said or thought, but the most important information was given to the reader. Wiesel also uses short, and simple sentences to add drama. “I was sixteen.” (page 102) During this part in the story Elie Wiesel had just witnessed a father die at the hands of his son, then his son die at the hands of others. He tells his audience that he is sixteen when this happens. This fact surprises readers and adds both drama, and sympathy. However, other emotions are also invoked in this story such as Anger. “They pray before you! They praise your name!”(page 68) By adding exclamations the author adds intense emotion. This scene creates upsetting emotions for the reader, and also reveals Wiesel's anger with his situation. Wiesel is angry and frustrated at God for everything that he has been put through. He is upset that others are still praying to God, even when God has done nothing to help them. The way that he structures his sentences give a sense of style to his

Elie Wiesel uses much barn and wild animal type of actions and language of how Elie and the other Jews were treated by Nazi Germany. In the beginning of the novel, Elie Wiesel and the Jewish people of Sighetu were forced onto a train. ”The next morning, we walked toward the station, where a convoy of cattle cars was waiting. The Hungarian police made us climb into the cars, eighty persons in one car.” (22)

Diction refers to Wiesel’s distinctive style of expression. He uses the words “murder” and “consumed” to describe how he feels. This accurately portrays how the camp had changed him. He no longer looked to God for answers. He felt alone from his first day in captivity. There was no freedom or happiness in his life anymore. Death became imminent and insignificant. He was surrounded by men and watched each one become nothing more than bone and flesh. But liberation came only with strength and endurance. Even those who were physically prepared didn’t necessarily make it. He repeats throughout the entire memoir the phrase “never shall I forget…” to emphasize the horror of the Holocaust.

The holocaust is one of the world's most tragic events, approximately 6 million Jews died and the concentration camp Auschwitz is the world's largest human cemetery, yet it has no graves. In Elie Wiesel's autobiographical memoir Night, he writes about his dehumanizing journey in the concentration camp, Auschwitz. Firstly, Elie experiences the loss of love and belonging when he is separated from his mother, sisters, and eventually his father. Also, the lack of respect that the Nazis showed the prisoners which lead to the men, including Elie to feel a sense of worthlessness in the camp. Finally, the lack of basic necessities in the camp leads to the men physically experiencing dehumanization. As a result, all these factors contribute to the

In 1944, World War II was close to over, but not for everyone. Six million Jewish people had been taken from their homes and put to the most dehumanizing work in history by being transported to concentration camps to work 12+ hour shifts. With little to no food, complete segregation, and torturous treatment by sadistic guards, this time of life was a literal hell for these Jews. The SS guards stationed there were so brutal, that the prisoners felt constantly in fear for their lives. In the award winning memoir, Night, written by Elie Wiesel, he narrates his experience as a young Jewish boy during the Holocaust. At the concentration camps, they were separated and put to work, not office work, interminable amounts of forced labor, no mistakes, and if so, shot or beaten to death. The Nazis decimated the Jewish population, and in doing so, exposed Hitler’s true intentions and cruelty. Wiesel discloses the radical changes that the Jews undergo, from normal people, with family and friends, into violent, self-centered crazies who look out for no one else and must fight for

One of Adolf Hitler’s promises was to eliminate the Jewish race. In order for this to happen, you must first see people as less than human. Once you have accomplished this task, the mass murder of millions of people becomes easy. In his memoir Night, Elie Wiesel recalls the multitude of times he was seen as less than human, and how this affected his life while in concentration camps. The dehumanization of the prisoners not only crushes them, it causes them to become desensitized and often see each other as less than human.

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.

Cruelty surrounds the world constantly, and is used frequently in works of literature to reveal certain things about the theme. In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel, acts of cruelty are used to express the theme and enhance its message. One of the largest themes revealed by these acts is “man’s inhumanity to man,” which includes mistreatment of Jews by the Nazis, the common people, and other Jews. Watching the large amounts of violence, abuse, and discrimination that occur in this memoir show us the horrors of the Holocaust and how it transformed the men and women who it experienced it, as well as those who caused it.

Everyone experiences emotional and physiological obstacles in their life. However, these obstacles are incomparable to the magnitude of the obstacles the prisoners of the Holocaust faced every day. In his memoir, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, illustrates the horrors of the concentration camps and their mental tool. Over the course of Night, Wiesel demonstrates, that exposure to an uncaring, hostile world leads to destruction of faith and identity.

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 lived changed under the Nazi regime. The Jews all lived peaceful, civilized lives before 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). This would change in the coming weeks, as Jews are segregated, sent to camps, and both physically and emotionally abused. These changes and abuse would dehumanize

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.

While Elie Wiesel, a Jewish boy subjugated to the violence of the Holocaust in Night, embarks on his atrocious journey in struggling to survive the brutality perpetrated on him, he loses his innocence in the traumatic circumstances. Wiesel’s main aspiration of writing about his development from childhood to adulthood is to showcase how cruelty within society can darken innocents’ souls. As Elie grows throughout the story, he starts to understand that he has changed from a pure, little child to a young man filled with distress and thoughts of danger. He reflects over what kind of individual he has evolved into because of the all the killings and torture he has witnessed: “I too had become a different