In Night by Elie Wiesel, silence is a reoccurring theme that represents many aspects of Wiesel’s struggle during the most coldblooded massacre in the history of the world. Although silence may seem unimportant, Wiesel’s remarks about this theme symbolizes far more. He believes it is silence that allows the Nazis to takeover and begin the slaughtering. Wiesel emphasizes that silence is the only appropriate response to the Holocaust because the events that took place at Auschwitz have caused language and words to seemingly have lost their meaning; the words people use to describe what happened cannot even compare to the reality of the event. Language no longer has any power to express the truth of what happened to the Jewish people during this inhumane mass execution. Wiesel uses silence to intensify dramatic effect, to suggest the indescribable, and to symbolize the loss of faith. Firstly, Wiesel is bothered by the fact that everyone in the world can remain silent while the Jews and the others in the concentration camps are being put through such terrible torture. Eliezer asks, “How was it possible that men, women, and children were being burned and that the world kept silent?”(32) There were numerous people that eventually found out what was happening at these concentration camps, but chose to turn a blind eye. Although they were not directly involved in the slaughtering of the Jews, they did remain silent during this time and by ignoring it they are encouraging the
In “Night” by Elie Wiesel silence gives time for him to reflect on his life and the struggles that are going on. When Wiesel is in the concentration camp he gets him time to reflect on the hardship of life and all of the terrible things such as when he say “ Not far from us, flames, huge flames, were rising from a ditch. Something was being burned there. A truck drew close and unloaded
The Nazi regime killed approximately six million Jews during the time of the Holocaust; this was more than half of the Jewish population in Europe before the war began. Victims of the Holocaust faced extremely harsh conditions and treatments that would stay with those who survived forever. Elie Wiesel’s “Night” explains his personal experience of suffering to survive throughout the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald. The author of the novel explains that inhumane and cruel treatments towards a group of people can lead them to give up all hope of survival through the use of tone, symbolism, and ellipses.
The Holocaust is an unforgettable event to anyone who had to live through the horrors of a concentration camp. Elie Wiesel is no exception. He was taken to a concentration camp in 1944 and lost his mother and father in the concentration camps. Mr. Wiesel was brave enough to step forward and share his experiences during the Holocaust, which he recorded in his book Night. In his book Night, Elie Wiesel uses irony, foreshadowing, and tone to describe the uncertainty of one’s future before going and while in a concentration camp.
The book Night is a story of family, religion, violence, and hope. This book tells the story of Elie Wiesel’s journey through the holocaust. During the novel, Wiesel writes with the purpose of teaching us several lessons. This lesson is conveyed through Wiesel’s actions, other character’s actions, as well as quotations. The lesson Wiesel taught in Night is to persevere and never lose hope up no matter how hopeless the situation may seem.
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.
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.
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.
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 also seems angry at the thought of comparing God’s infinite greatness with the complete disintegration of the people in the concentration camps. Thinking about God’s power and strength seems impossible when the only people surrounding Wiesel who are in positions of power are the enemy. It seems almost morbidly amusing that the Jews are relying on this Savior who allows such horrible conditions to continue. If he is so wonderful, why does he not save them?
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.
Wiesel wants to show people how awful these camps were and how basically the whole world new about it, but they did not do anything to stop it because it was not them who it was happening to, so they did not think that it was a problem.
If we held one minute of silence for each life lost in the Holocaust, we would be sitting in silence for 11.5 years. The statement “never give up, regardless the situation” is very easy to agree with. We are told this told by our peers all the time, in everyday life. This is important to think about during school, sports,relationships, or even life or death situations like Elie was in throughout the book “Night”.
Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.” The repetition of the phrase “Never shall I forget” really emphasises on and illustrated that what Wiesel is describing will be engraved in his memory forever, that it is impossible to forget. I also think that he wants to spread the word about what happened in the holocaust, raise awareness and make sure that nothing even remotely like it ever happens again.
“Silence is the most powerful scream,” wise words spoken by an anonymous individual. Silence is sometimes more effective conveying a message or idea than words are, an idea explored by Wiesel. His memoir describes the hardships and experiences of a teenage boy surviving through the holocaust. He speaks of the unbearable situations he went through, such as going without food for days, watching his father die, and accepting the physical abuse from SS officers. In the memoir Night, Wiesel uses structure, symbolism, and motifs to display the power and consequences of silence.