...In Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night, the narrator describes how he struggled to survive in numerous concentration camps during the Holocaust. Eliezer changes throughout the text from a religious to an unemotional, lifeless being; the dehumanization he endured in the camps caused him to lose his childhood. Elie Wiesel uses simile, personification, and metaphor to demonstrate the effects of dehumanization. Wiesel uses simile to demonstrate that dehumanization causes people to act like animals. For example, Eliezer states how inhumanly his actions are: “ A man appeared, crawling like a worm in the direction of the cauldrons”(Wiesel 66). This quote demonstrates that people would do anything for the survival of themselves. Even if they were shot down, they would want to help themselves first before others. This quote is animal-like because, in the story, Eliezer is describing this prisoner to a worm. Elie dehumanizes others because he is jealous and wants what others have. The use of the word worm implies to an animal who slithers on the ground. In conclusion, Wiesel uses simile to demonstrate that dehumanization causes people to act like animals. Wiesel uses personification to demonstrate that dehumanization causes people to go crazy. For example, Eliezer states, “We...
Words: 407 - Pages: 2
...When Elie recites his story in the book Night, he talks about the inhumane the SS officers and how they endured cruel treatment. Elie also talks about how the SS officers split their family and the torture he endured in the concentration camp Auschwitz. Wiesel uses imagery all throughout the book to emphasize the horrible treatment of the camp. Imagery, a visually descriptive or figurative language plays a big role in describing the scenery and the treatment. In the book Night, Elie Wiesel used imagery to explain how the SS officers treated the prisoners brutally and dehumanized them. When SS officers took Elie and his family to the concentration camp he had to go through the physical and mental torture. The SS officers treated the prisoners less than...
Words: 620 - Pages: 3
...heart, one more to hate. One less reason to live” (Wiesel 109). Countless victims of the Holocaust gradually lost the desire to live due to the cruel acts of Hitler’s regime. Even after WWII, victims still would cling to the fear of enduring the abuse of the Nazis. Several victims wish these memories would vanish from their subconscious, but instead Elie Wiesel took the liberty of writing Night, which is a memoir that valiantly recounts his experience as a Holocaust survivor. His autobiographical account of the concentration camps grimly illustrates the agony felt by the victims and exposes to the public how the actions of the Nazi regime would mentally, physically, and emotionally affect the...
Words: 1080 - Pages: 5
...humans tortured and killed other humans because they were different. In Eliezier Wiesel’s memoir, Night he describes the extreme cruelty and suffering he endures in Auschwitz and other concentration camps as a child inmate during the Holocaust. Wiesel can neither explain nor understand the reasons for human cruelty that he witnesses and endures during the Holocaust, but learns that cruelty breeds more of the same and in the end survival and self-preservation is all that matters. Night sample thesis statements: You may borrow one, make it your own or write one from scratch: 1. Question: Analyze Elie and other characters’ struggle with faith. You can approach this chronologically or by effects. What is Elie’s final judgment on the benefit/cost of faith? Consider Elie’s interpretations of God’s intentions and use of visual imagery (such as death and night imagery). Thesis: At the beginning of the novel Elie has a desire to grow his religious faith and connection to God; however, as the story progresses and he witnesses tremendous suffering and loss his faith is shaken and lost. 2. Question: Analyze the essence and effects of dehumanization and human cruelty in Night on the perpetrators and/or the victims. Does Night help explain why people are capable of terrible crimes against...
Words: 420 - Pages: 2
...The Corruption of Power In his memoir Night, Elie Wiesel shows the corruption brought on by power. As a young boy, Wiesel is taken to Auschwitz, the most infamous concentration camp of World War II. From there he travels from camp to camp, eventually losing his father to death right before liberation. Several experiments and people prove the corruption of power. In the Stanford prison experiment, the guards become cold and ruthless in their punishment of the prisoners. Hitler convinces an entire nation to follow his twisted version of a future. Many concentration camps are known worldwide for their past cruelty. In all of these cases, people use power to exert control over others. If power is used to control, then in the wrong hands the old axiom is true: absolute power does corrupt absolutely. As an example of the corruption of power, guards exert unjust control over prisoners in the Stanford prison experiment. In fact, one guard says after the experiment, “Once you slip into that costume, you become that person.” The experiment is just a farce, but it becomes so real they have to call it off eight days before the allotted time for the experiment is up. The guards and prisoners are both ordinary students, but they change drastically during the six days of the experiment. The guards have power thrust upon them...
Words: 543 - Pages: 3
