Theme Of Dehumanization In Night

Words: 493
Pages: 2

In the book Night, Elie Wiesel uses several different themes. One of those themes is dehumanization. Dehumanization is very important in the book. He illustrates the theme by using great detail and immense description. In the beginning of the book, Elie talks about how his life was starting to change. “Three days later, a new decree: every Jew had to wear the yellow star,” (page 11). That is an example of dehumanization because, men and women were forced to label themselves as Jews. The yellow star was the symbol for the Jews. Non- Jews were able to see at a glance if someone was Jewish. The Jews could not try to hide the fact they were Jewish if they wanted to. The Jews thought of this being oblivious, they thought of this being absent in their world. Dehumanization in Sighet at the time was not horrible, but the Jews had no idea what was coming.
Elie then describes how the selection happened at the first concentration camp he went to.
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“... two grave ‘diggers’ grabbed him by the head and feet and threw him from the wagon like a sack of flour,” (page 99).That shows that even the Jews turned on themselves when a small piece of bread was up for grabs. They felt each others wrath when fighting for a few small crumbs. The Jews were packed in the cattle cars like sardines. They had to take turns sitting down because there was no space for all of them to sit down at once. They began to have little to no patience for each other, and was more than ready to get the dead off the cattle car to make more space so they could sit down and rest. The Jews were treating each other like trash.
To conclude, Elie Wiesel describes dehumanization very well throughout the book. He communicates the theme by going into great detail to really paint a picture for the reader. He uses similes to really help describe how the Jews were treated so horribly in an easier way to