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Theme Of Irony In Night By Elie Wiesel

Decent Essays

Mekai Brown
Ramos
1st Block
October 9, 2017
How does Wiesel use literary devices to create a consistent theme?
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 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. Similarly, Elie deliberately uses several instances of foreshadowing as a warning that further develops the dehumanization theme. As the cattle car was approaching Auschwitz concentration camp, Madame Schächter screams, “’Jews listen to me,’ she cried. ‘I see fire! I see flames, huge flames’” (25 Wiesel)! Madame foreshadows the annihilation of millions of Jews being burned alive and dead within the crematoriums located at Auschwitz. Also, her hallucinations predicted the horrific fate of all the Jewish people, who would suffer

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