Figurative Language In Night By Elie Wiesel

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Pages: 3

During World War 2, the Germans imprisoned and killed millions of Jews in concentration camps. Very few people survived these awful places. One such survivor was named Elie Wiesel. After the war he wrote a book called Night to explain his experiences, and to tell why something like that should never happen again. Throughout the book Wiesel uses language related to darkness, death, and decay to portrays the horror around him. This language conjures disturbing images that inform the reader of what happened in the holocaust. Of the many examples of this in the book, I have chosen three quotes that exemplify this idea. The first example of this is on page 65 of the book. Earlier in the chapter, a man was publicly hanged for trying to form a conspiracy against the camp. That night he describes the bland soup that the prisoners were given had never tasted better. He is glad to be alive and savors the moment as he eats. Later in the chapter, there is another hanging, but this …show more content…
He and his father are separated from the rest of the family, and are almost thrown into a fiery furnace and left to die. As they stand looking at the flames, they see men throwing live babies into the inferno. Wiesel summarizes this experience as a turning point in his life. He said: " Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget those small faces of children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky." Though this is a literal representation of all the death that occurred during this time, it can also have a symbolical meaning to the death of many other things in Elie's life. The transformation in this moment also applies to his future and all of the hopes and dreams that died in that first night at Auschwitz. Repeated uses of the phrase "never shall I forget" drill into the reader's mind to show how life changing Auschwitz was, and all the death that occurred