Night vs The Book Thief
Both set in the time period of World War II, Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief and Elie Wiesel’s Night tell a story revolving around the events of the Holocaust. However, each book tells a very different story and uses different word choices to describe their story. The diction used in the young-adult fiction novel The Book Thief and the nonfiction memoir Night drew a sharp contrast when compared to each other, highlighting the intentions of each book.
Night, a mostly non fiction story, told the tale of Elie Wiesel’s hardship ridden journey through the concentration camps. When Wiesel described his experiences in his memoir Night, his diction included grotesque and gory descriptions. An example of this would be when Wiesel
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Wiesel’s intention in writing Night was to educate as many people as possible about the horrors those who went through the concentration camps faced, educate them so that the Holocaust would not be forgotten and so that nothing of the kind would happen again. Wiesel used grotesque descriptions and powerful imagery such as his most shocking observation when he reaches the concentration camps. “Babies! Yes I did see this, with my very own eyes… children thrown into the flames” (Wiesel 32). These vivid, emotionally charged language reflected the horrid conditions in the concentration camps, accomplishing Wiesel’s purpose. Zusak’s intention in writing The Book Thief was to entertain and the diction used was very much shaped by the fact that the book was marketed as a book for young adults, developing minds. Zusak’s language was less grotesque and the events in The Book Thief were much less intense when compared to Night. This had the effect of sugarcoating over some of the awful events that were happening at the time period, awful events that perhaps Zusak didn’t think some of his readers could handle. An example would be how Zusak wrote about the death of Liesel Meminger’s brother, he wrote it in the perspective of death stating “I knelt down and extracted his soul” (Zusak 21). This portrayal of her brother’s death as Death taking his soul is a rather child-friendly way to sugarcoat the
Elie Wiesel’s autobiography Night is an account of the brutality of the Holocaust faced by Elie at the age of fourteen to fifteen and the horrors he endures. Night exposes much that is wrong with human nature and reveals little that is right. During the novel, he endures loss of faith as his experience within the Holocaust becomes more difficult. The elements wrong with human nature are represented by the novel, particularly the cruelty and the ignorance. The autobiography, however, only represents little that is right, such as the memory kept in order for the events never to happen again.
Between the two books of different genres, a reader is opened up to different circumstances of two people. During the Holocaust, there were those who lived through the terror in Nazi Germany under Hitler's reign, and those who suffered from the work of Nazi’s ending up inside compact concentration camps. Within the book Night by Elie Wiesel and the book The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, the Holocaust period was a key factor. Both the books stress the idea of the Holocaust, however are portrayed in very different ways. With the stories being told from different perspectives the true feelings of the Holocaust are understood and the similarities between all people are shown.
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.
Language has the ability to impact the mood and tone of a piece in literature. In Night, Wiesel uses imagery, symbolism, diction and foreshadowing to illustrate dehumanization. The deeper true horror of the Holocaust is not what they Nazi’s did, but the behavior they legitimized as human beings being dehumanized by one another through silence and apathy.
An author’s form of word usage and manipulation provides stories their feeling, tone, and pace while simultaneously creating a reader’s suspension of belief. Elie Wiesel in his book Night tells us of the year he spent in concentration camps during the Holocaust. Like many people have said and proven true, a lot of things can happen in a year making it almost impossible to retell every experience down to a tee; with this information in mind Wiesel writes of the moments that stuck with him, and would possibly with readers.
In the novel Night by Elie Wiesel and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, both authors uses stories of failure and suffering in order make the reader feel pity for the main characters and a bit of surprise toward at what horrible acts humanity is willing to commit during desperate times. The novel Night, by Elie Wiesel is about the author’s days during the time he was imprisoned at various concentration camps, Wiesel had suffered both physically and mentally, especially with his father dying towards the end. The Book Thief is about the story of a girl named Liesel Meminger and what happened after her mother handed her off to two foster parents named Hans and Rosa Hubermann. Even though Liesel was not imprisoned like Elie, she still faces many problems such as the nightmares she experienced every night.
In the novel “Night”, author, Elie Wiesel uses imagery to share his experiences as a jew during the holocaust. Wiesel’s use of imagery helps demonstrate the tone and purpose of the entire novel. Elie Wiesel’s journey starts off subtle but in the end leaves the reader heartbroken. Throughout the story, Wiesel describes his tragic memories during the nazi concentration camps, which establishes a dark and somber tone. His descriptions and use of imagery creates the tone and purpose of “Night”.
“The Holocaust was not only a Jewish tragedy but also a human tragedy,” (Wiesenthal). The Holocaust was all-around a dark patch in history. It was something that although it took a toll on lots of people throughout the world, and the Holocaust had the biggest impact for those being Jewish and living in Europe. There have been many films, movies, and books depicting life during the Holocaust. Night is a memoir written by Elie Wiesel, who was a victim of the Holocaust growing up as a Jewish boy and has as a result gone to numerous concentration camps. In Night, he describes a time period of his life which revolved around the Holocaust. Where his family, identity, and innocence were lost in a very cruel way. Elie Wiesel through his use of tone
In Night, by Elie Wiesel, one man tells his story of how he survived his terrible experience during the Holocaust. Wiesel takes you on a journey through his “night” of the Holocaust, and how he survived the world’s deadliest place, Auschwitz-Birkenau. Elie Wiesel will captivate you on his earth shattering journey through his endless night. Elie Wiesel’s book Night forces you to open your eyes to the real world by using; irony, diction, and repetition to prove that man does have the capability to create such a harsh reality.
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 time of death. It was initiated by Adolf Hitler and his German army and was the mass genocide that killed over six million Jews. Among those were women and children being sent to death right away, the others were then “selected”, Elie Wiesel was one of the lucky ones. He was a survivor who lived to tell about his experience in the death camps. Elie Wiesel wrote the book ‘Night’ because he felt it was his duty and responsibility to show readers what really happened during the Holocaust. His writing style effectively develops his point of view so he is able to convey a compelling story-his story.
The memoir Night by Elie Wiesel, tells the story of a young boy surviving through the Holocaust. The story conveys the effects of this barbaric event on the boy emotionally, physically, and mentally. This crude, genocidal imperial impacted millions of people. This story focuses mainly on Elie Wiesel's perspective on the Holocaust; considering his many years of labor, servitude, and transportation through multiple concentration camps. At such a young age, he was put through torturous anguish. Throughout this story, he explains the effect of the Holocaust on him as a boy along with how he handled it.
Survivors of the holocaust will always be affected by the gruesome actions that were done to them. They will often express their feelings through writing, art, and many other ways informing people of the horrible events they went through. As a holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel shares his story in his memoir Night. It takes the readers through his time in the comcenration camps and the brutal reality of what was being done to him and others. Throughout the memoir his writing reflects the experiences that were done to him through his change in diction, syntax, tone, and physical and emotional changes during chapters 1-5 and 6-9.
Sometimes a single word can describe everything for an individual. In Elie Wiesel’s autobiography Night, Wiesel has been exposed tribulations during The Holocaust; he had been taken captive at the young age of fifteen and spent months at the precipice of death. When several people would have an array of words to illustrate the entirety of the novel, Wiesel had saw fit one to fully do the job. Night is entitled Night because it depicts, symbolizes, and is a personification of Wiesel experiences and thoughts of The Holocaust.
In Elie Wiesel's Night, the first person narrator, Elie Wiesel, lets the reader to be able to have a firsthand account of the Holocaust and World War II and also explain what evil can do to a person. Elie is "a body. Perhaps less than that even; a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time" (Wiesel 50). When he faces the "Angel of Death," Dr. Mengele, he is so scarred that he shall never "forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned [his] life into one long night seven times sealed. ... Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live. ... Never" (34). The impact of these lines cause readers to experience the evils that the Germans decided to expose to the Jewish when they brought