Rhetorical Devices In Night By Elie Wiesel

The book Night tells the readers how Elie Wiesel experienced the moments during the Holocaust. In the story he and his dad were separated from the the rest of the family, which was his mom and his sister. After they were separated from each other, his dad and him were going through some rough moments. The Nazis dehumanized all the Jew, so all the Jew wouldn't have any power by calling the Jews not by their names but their number, calling the them animals, and not giving food to the people who need it.

Evyn Ringena Mr. Baker English 1 5 May 2023 Speak up In his acceptance speech, Elie Wiesel indicates how neutrality only favors the oppressor. An example of his central idea, neutrality only favors the oppressor, comes from his book Night.

God had not helped Elie even after he would sing his praises, “We needed to show God that even here, locked in hell, we were capable of singing His praises.” Elie was tired of God’s silence, he did not show him mercy with all that he endured. The destruction, the death, the conditions ruined his faith and any hope he had

(34). By claiming that his god was murdered, he implements personification to make a point and drive home exactly how extreme Elie’s shift from his initial self was. He feels that his God was murdered. He maintains a tenuous hold on his faith, though. The reality is that his view of God has changed from the way he viewed Him as a child.

Elie has just heard a tale of a son betraying his father and prays to God to help him never cross his father after not believing in God for a long time. The author tells the reader, “And in spite of myself, a prayer formed inside me, a prayer to this God in whom I no longer believed” (Wiesel 91). This reveals that despite Elie losing all his faith in God, he recognizes he’s at his weakest and prays to God to help him. He turns to God at the moment he believes he needs him most. Elie’s decision to pray is a significant turning point in Elie’s identity.

Elie Wiesel maintains a strong desire to spread awareness and create a small pool of guilt for the bystanders. Although the majority of bystanders didn’t wish pain upon the Jews, they chose to do nothing, standing on the sidelines while innocent people died. Elie emphasizes his opinion by repeating a word that has a great impact. “Indifference” is a strong word that expresses a heavy connotation. The word itself means no difference but is used negatively, ironically creating a bigger difference between people.

Elie has experienced so much pain. He thinks that dying would be a relief. This shows how depressed he has been and how he just wants to let go of it

Night by Elie Wiesel is a stirring and moving account of Elie’s experiences during the Holocaust. This narrative was given from Elie's perspective and offers a glimpse into the horrors he and other Jews tolerated during this terrible period. Elie communicates the value of faith and the need for courage in his experience. He also creates a huge image of the darkness that took over many held captive during the Holocaust. Elie's tale serves as a big reminder of the strength of perseverance and faith in the face of difficulty and struggle.

Three SS took his place”[pg.64]. It was the slow, painful death which caused the detainees to question "where[…] merciful God”[pg.64] is. It was after losing all faith in humanity that “the soup tasted of corpses”[pg.65] that night. Additionally, during Rosh Hashanah, the last day of the Jewish year, most of the Jews got their hope from their faith. However, Elie and perhaps a few others received their hope from criticizing their Almighty.

This describes Elie’s thoughts after witnessing the bodies of innocent Jewish children being cremated in front of him. He also doubted why he had been chosen to be alive but not others, and felt a sense of guilt. This horrific experience left Elie in shock and scarred him. It made him lose the faith in God that he once had because how could God let such inhumane events occur? Not only did he lose faith but also became dehumanized and would never be able to go back to the person he once was before.

At the beginning of the novel, Elie is deeply religious and believes in the power of God to protect him and his people. However, as he witnesses the horrors of the concentration camps, he begins to question his faith and the existence of a benevolent God. In one powerful passage, Elie reflects on his experiences in the camps and his loss of faith, saying, "Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky" (Wiesel 34).

In paragraph 7, Wiesel argues that “Indifference elicits no response […] is not a response […] is not a beginning […] is an end […] is not only a sin […] is a punishment.” Through this parallel structure, Wiesel conveys that indifference is inhuman by setting up correspondences between indifference with no response, end, sin, and punishment, appealing to audiences’ logos. In a logical reasoning, when you agree with a claim, you have a tendency to agree with the next claim; these repeating phrases make sure Wiesel’s audiences agree with at least one of them, and later agree with his conclusion that indifference is inhuman. Wiesel emphasizes that indifference is inhuman with his reference of different scenarios of people treated indifferently, “the hungry children” and “the homeless refugees” were treated with indifferent responses like “not to respond to their plight” and “not to relieve their solitude”, which appeals to the audience’s emotion to think of how they would be treated terribly if people around them are indifference. The helpless and despairing scenes Wiesel creates cultivates his audience’s as well as your sympathies toward these victims, and forces you to question yourself that whether or not you yourself was one of those indifferent

and Elie hears a voice in his state “Where is He? Here He is-He is hanging here on this gallows....”. This event had a deep impact on Elie himself, as it was an event that caused him to start to doubt and lose his faith, through his time in these camps he was praying and had hope in his god, the god that was always there for him. But as time went on and Elie watched people die around him, innocent people he lost his faith. How could the god he believed so strongly abandon his people like this and leave them to

These withered bodies had long forgotten the bitter taste of tears” (Wiesel, 63). Elie Wiesel uses this quote to appeal to the reader’s sympathy by communicating the inhumane life inside a concentration camp and the hopeless state of the prisoners. This quote also communicates Elie Wiesel’s reliability as someone who witnessed and experienced the horrific topics discussed in the memoir. Both appeals relate to the main purpose in how horrific events that result in horrors just as Elie Wiesel describes should never happen again, and therefore need to be fought against and addressed. Another usage of pathos Elie Wiesel utilizes is when describing the prisoners’ reaction to witnessing the hangings of the 2 men and the child, where states, “‘For God’s sake, where is God?’

In his book there is a plethora of emotional moments, whether it’s the loss of perception of there being any hope of freedom or hope of any existing humanity or even the slight possibility of surviving such a horrific event. In the beginning of the book there was hope of a happy life with his family, and when you look back at that after the end, you realize the Elie has truly lost it all; his family, his humanity, his faith. Their lives were full of darkness. For instance, “The days were like nights, and the days left the dregs of their darkness in our souls.” (Night, pg.67) or the chapter of Julik’s death, when he played Beethoven on the violin to the dying Jews.