The way the officers treated the Jews made them feel like they weren't human anymore, and no better than inanimate objects. “You...you...you…” They pointed their fingers, the way one might choose cattle, or merchandise” (49). The officers acted as if the task of deciding who lived and who died was easy and required almost no thought. Again, the jewish people are not only compared to as dogs, but as merchandise. Something that sits on a shelf collecting dust until it is thrown away, an inanimate object. “Faster, you tramps, you flea-ridden dogs!” Why not? Moving fast made us a little warmer. The blood flowed more readily in our veins. We had the feeling of being alive” (19). Elie says he has the feeling of being alive, but truly was a walking
So, how was Wiesel denied his individuality? Well in the book it says “ We no longer have the right to frequent restaurants or cafes, to travel by rail, to attend synagogue, to be on the streets after six o’clock in the evening.” (Wiesel 11). The way this quote from the book proves that he was denied individuality is that the Jews didn’t have a choice about what they could and could not do while the Nazis took over. Then soon after, the ghettos were made and every single Jew was forced to live there for three days.
1. After the hanging of a child, Elie hears someone say, “‘For God’s sake, where is God?’ And from within me, I heard a voice answer: ‘Where He is? This is where—hanging here from this gallows…’ That night, the soup tasted of corpses” (Wiesel 65). Though optimistic at first, Elie Wiesel, along with many others at the concentration camps, began to lose faith in God.
1- Elie Wiesel is comparing the soup to the taste of corpses because before they went to get their soup to eat, they watched the hanging of three bodies, two men and a child. They had to watch the light child struggle for life in the noose, watching him for half an hour up close until he died, no one wanted to see a child get hanged at an age like that. I feel that the emotions Elie is trying to communicate with us is extreme sadness and sorrow not only because of the death of the two prisoners, but because of the death of the boy. This quote to me, means that because of what he saw up close and for a half an hour, the 13 year old boy trying to cling to his life in the noose, had left a bad taste in his mouth for the soup.
“Survival of the fittest” a phrase representing the person who is strong both mentally and physically being able to survive. In the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel, the author recounts his own experience as a Jewish teenager in Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. Through his vivid descriptions of the atrocities he witnessed and endured, Wiesel underscores the importance of survival in such extreme circumstances. Indeed, survival should always be the primary goal in any situation where one's life is at stake. Wiesel's memoir offers a harrowing glimpse into the horrors of the Holocaust.
Q5: After I read this book, this made me understand how much the Jews has struggled in the camps. Before I read this book, I thought the concentration camps is where Jews had to work until there numbers on their arm would be called out to get killed. They would killed them only by using the gas chambers which that wasn't the case at all. A lot of Jews were killed by machine guns. Babies were used as target practices for shooting.
Hitler began his fourth wave. “”The News is terrible,” he said at last. And then one word: “Transports.” The ghetto was to be liquidated entirely. Departures were to take place street by street, starting the next day.”
Eliezer Wiesel loses his confidence in god, family and humankind through the encounters he has from the Nazi death camp. Eliezer loses confidence in god. He battles physically and rationally forever and no more accepts there is a divine being. "Never should I overlook those minutes which killed my god and my spirit and turned my fantasies to dust..."(pg 32). Elie endeavored to spare himself and asks god commonly to bail him and take him out of his hopelessness.
This quote is ironic because throughout this book we see Hitler constantly hurting the Jews. When Elie says that he has more faith in HItler than in anyone else it is ironic because Hitler is the one that started the Holocaust. He decided to invade and hurt the Jews. Hitler is the reason why he was separated from his mother and sisters. When they first arrived at the camp the woman and men were separated.
1. With so many bad things going on and the news no being positive, Jews didn’t want to believe any of this in hopes that something good would happen. I know when I heard the news that my grandma had passed away I refused to believe it, in hopes that it wasn’t true. 2. "... our eyes opened, but too late” refers to how people were starting to realize everything Moishe the Beadle was saying was true.
This passage is set when the Jews finally arrive at the concentration camp. The first thing they see, pointed out by Mrs. Schachter, is the flames rising from the camp, presumably from the crematorium. I found this quote to be very chilling, and it struck me. Imagine travelling for days on end, with no idea where you’re going, and you’re stuck in a cattle car with at least eighty other people. Suddenly, you arrive at your destination, only to see flames and smell burning flesh.
The usage of literary devices is very concentrated in the book Night by Elie Wiesel. Which literary device is mostly used in the book Night? While there is a wide variety of literary devices used during the book night the three best and most used literary devices are similes, juxtaposition, and motifs. To start, the first literary device that I found in the book Night is the usage of similes and how they are used to illustrate dehumanization. Similes are used in a lot of ways in the book Night.
To find a man who has not experienced suffering is impossible; to have man without hardship is equally unfeasible. Such trials are a part of life and assert that one is alive by shaping one’s character. In the autobiographical memoir Night by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, this molding is depicted through Elie’s transformation concerning his identity, faith, and perspective. As a young boy, Elie and his fellow neighbors of Sighet, Romania were sent to Auschwitz, a macabre concentration camp with the sole motive of torturing and killing Jews like himself. There, Elie experiences unimaginable suffering, and upon liberation a year later, leaves as a transformed person.
The world could be a definition of a utopia or a dystopia, though our world tends to be leaning towards a dystopia. This world we live in is filled with depression, hate, and even pain because all the conflicts and deaths that is happening all around the world. A point in history that is a clear example of a dystopian society was the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, shows a normal child during the Holocaust being put through camps after camps as a result of being Jewish. He was forced to grow up fast; having to take care of his father, encountering millions of deaths, and tortured by the S.S. Guards, living a life like no child should.
The entire world was so ignorant to such a massacre of horrific events that were right under their noses, so Elie Wiesel persuades and expresses his viewpoint of neutrality to an audience. Wiesel uses the ignorance of the countries during World War II to express the effects of their involvement on the civilians, “And then I explain to him how naive we were, that the world did know and remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent when and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation” (Weisel). To persuade the audience, Elie uses facts to make the people become sentimental toward the victims of the Holocaust. Also, when Weisel shares his opinion with the audience, he gains people onto his side because of his authority and good reputation.
Night Paper Assignment Night, by Elie Wiesel, is a tragic memoir that details the heinous reality that many persecuted Jews and minorities faced during the dark times of the Holocaust. Not only does Elie face physical deprivation and harsh living conditions, but also the innocence and piety that once defined him starts to change throughout the events of his imprisonment in concentration camp. From a boy yearning to study the cabbala, to witnessing the hanging of a young child at Buna, and ultimately the lack of emotion felt at the time of his father 's death, Elie 's change from his holy, sensitive personality to an agnostic and broken soul could not be more evident. This psychological change, although a personal journey for Elie, is one that illustrates the reality of the wounds and mental scars that can be gained through enduring humanity 's darkest times.