Figurative Language in ‘Night’: Unmasking Holocaust Horrors

Form, Structure, and Plot:

The story covers a timeline of the duration in which Elie Wiesel was under the influence of the Nazis. The novel is an autobiography and recounts the events of a tragic disaster in history: the Holocaust.

Chapter 1: Elie meets Moishe the Beadle, who teaches Elie about Kabbalah. All of the foreign Jews are expelled from Sighet, including Moishe. Moishe returns to Sighet to tell the Jews about what he experienced, but no one believes him. German soldiers come to Sighet and begin to oppress the Jews slowly.

The leaders of the Jewish community are arrested on the seventh day of Passover. The Jewish people are no longer allowed to own any valuables and are stripped of their belongings. Two ghettos are created, and the Jews are transferred within them. Elie and his family are moved to the small ghetto. The Nazis then begin to deport the Jews in increments, and Eliezer’s family is among the last to leave Sighet.

Chapters 2 & 3: Elie and his family are sent on the train ride to Birkenau. When they arrive at the camp, families are separated, and Elie and his father must leave Elie’s mom and sisters. His mother and sister are never to be seen again. Everyone is sent to the showers and then assigned to a barrack. The specialists of certain jobs are taken. All of the men were taken to Auschwitz. Elie and his father find a family member and then moves to Buna.

Chapter 4: At Buna, they are given showers and new clothes and are assigned to a tent. All of the men go through a medical checkup. Elie is sent to the dentist to have his gold crown removed, but he pretends to be sick. Franek demands Elie’s gold crown, but Elie refuses, so he torments Elie’s father; he later caves in and gives him the gold crown. Allies start bombing Buna. A young boy is hung but doesn’t die instantly. Elie is forced to watch the boy dying.

Chapter 5: Elie and his father are put into different blocks. A selection takes place, and Elie’s father does not pass, so he gives Elie his knife and spoon. Elie’s father passes the second selection. Winter begins. Elie gets an operation on his foot. The red army approaches Buna, so the Jews are forced to evacuate. The death march begins.

Chapters 6 & 7: The Jewish are forced to run for an excruciating amount of time. They arrive at an abandoned village. The Rabbi asks if they have seen his son, whom Elie remembers seeing departing from his father to save himself. Elie vows to never be like the Rabbi’s son and to never leave his father. The Jews continue marching until they arrive in Gleiwitz. There is a selection, and Elie and his father are sent to different sides; a commotion booms and his father is able to switch sides. They are sent on a train that makes constant stops to throw out the dead. They stop in a German town, and the civilians throw bread into the trains.

Chapters 8 & 9: They are sent to the showers; however, Elie’s father wants to sit and not go on. Elie is separated from his father but finds him the next morning. The blocks are cleaned, and Elie’s father begins to suffer from dysentery. Elie goes to the doctor, who says there is nothing he can do to save Elie’s father. The other men begin to steal Mr. Wiesel’s food and beat him because they can no longer stand him. The block leader tells Elie to let his father go. Elie’s father dies, and Elie is transferred to the children’s block. The American army comes, and at last, Elie senses freedom.

Point-Of-View (Narrative Perspective):

The novel is written in first person and focuses on his own personal life during the time of the Holocaust. Sixty years have passed since the publication of Night. This point of view really dives into his personal thoughts and actions and takes a look into a rare account of a Jewish survivor. He explains in detail the memories that are ingrained into his life timeline and takes a look at the illogic of the Nazis when they invaded his homeland.

Characters:

Eliezer: He is the narrator and the author of the book Night. His account is intensely personal and contains graphic descriptions of his experience living in German concentration camps. He is persevering, traumatized, and smart.

Eliezer’s Father: Although his name is not mentioned many times throughout the piece, he plays a pivotal role in staying alongside his son and creating an unbreakable bond. They worked together to attempt to survive throughout the course of the entire Holocaust; however, his father did not make the end. He is inspiring, knowledgeable, and determined.
Moshe: He is Eliezer’s Jewish teacher who warns him and others about the Nazis coming. Because no one believed him, they were unprepared when the Germans set foot in their city. He is encouraging, kind, and brave.

Madame Schachter: She is a Jewish woman from Sighet who was deported in the same car as Eliezer. Seen as a possessed being, she screamed of furnaces that surfaced in the distance. However, she proved to be a prophet, foreshadowing what was to come in the Holocaust. She is deep-rooted, tenacious, and courageous.

Setting:

This novel takes place at both Buchenwald and Auschwitz concentration camps, places that Elie experienced and loved through. The setting demonstrates the severity and seriousness in which he had lived and the extreme conditions one had to endure and survive.

Themes:

Loss of Religious Faith: Eliezer witnesses and experiences things that he cannot reconcile with the idea of a just and all-knowing God. He questions the authority of the higher being and the reason he continues to live in harsh environments. ‘Where is God now?’

Dehumanization: Throughout the autobiography, Elie explains the inhumane treatments and the pain the Jews had to suffer to live in the reign of the German Nazis. He provided sensory descriptions to take account of the sadness he saw in the concentration camps.

Guilt: In Night, Elie is often faced with guilt because he attempts to save his weak father by helping him get extra food and rest. However, by helping his father, he himself may suffer and die. He has to balance both sides, and the situation makes it difficult to accommodate both parties.

Diction and Syntax:

Elie Wiesel employs diction and syntax to show the dehumanizing effects of the Holocaust. In order to convey the emotional pain he suffered, he uses abrupt, short sentences to indicate the sense of loss and sadness he felt. With long words, they do provide significant meaning to the meaning of the account and dive into the concept of dehumanization. He employs words such as ‘filthy,’ ‘disgusting,’ and ‘swept.’ Instead, this method does not hold readers too focused on the lengthiness of the autobiography but rather emphasizes the short words that show the piercing effects of German Nazis towards dehumanization.

Imagery:

Imagery is shown throughout the story ‘Night’ when Elie describes his terrible experiences throughout the concentration camps and death camps. Other examples of imagery in this book include when Elie describes his time in the concentration camps and when he describes the horrid conditions he and his peers are forced to live in. The descriptions of death, the camps, and even the way they were treated are all examples of imagery throughout Night. An example of imagery from the book is ‘The next morning, we walked toward the station, where a convoy of cattle cars was waiting. The Hungarian police made us climb into the cars, eighty people in each one. They handed us some bread, a few pails of water (22). This is an example of imagery because Elie is explaining that they were put on cattle cars heading to the death camps and that there were up to 80 people in each cattle car with small rations of food and a small amount of water.

A dying man continues crawling toward soup during a time of sheer brutality. This moment occurs when the prisoners are ordered to be confined in the barracks during an air raid. Despite the warning signals, a dying man crawls outside to take advantage of a cauldron of soup that has been left outside. He crawls towards the soup and desperately thrusts his head into the liquid, but it is too late, and he dies a horrifying tragic death. The image shows that dignity has been stripped from prisoners and that, at some point, animal survival instincts take over their personalities.

Figurative Language:

“Physically, he was as awkward as a clown. His waiflike shyness made people smile.” (3). Simile: This example of figurative language compares Moishe’s awkward traits to that of a clown. Due to its direct comparative nature using ‘as,’ it is classified as a simile.

“As for my mother, she was walking, her face a mask without a word, deep in thought” (19). This excerpt is a metaphor because it compares Elie’s mother’s lack of emotion to that of a mask without using direct comparative words or being literally applicable.

“After the war, I learned the fate of those who had remained at the infirmary. They were, quite simply, liberated by the Russians two days after the evacuation.” (82). This quote is very ironic in a depressing way because it was unexpected that those who remained at the infirmary would be liberated, and Elie ultimately chose more cruelty and suffering by deciding to follow the others.

“The race seemed endless; I felt as though I had been running for years..” (72). This is hyperbole because it exaggerates the length of the race by saying that it was endless.
Ironic Devices:

“Run as if you had the devil at your heels! And most important, don’t be afraid.” (71) This quote is ironic because it emphasizes that the most important thing in surviving a test that determines one’s life is to not be afraid, which can be seen as impossible.

“I wanted to run away, but my feet were nailed to the floor. Idek grabbed me by the throat.” (57). This is an example of hyperbole within a metaphorical phrase because Elie’s feet were not actually nailed to the floor, although such an exaggeration emphasizes his inability to move.

“At every step, white signs with black skull looked down on us. The inscription: WARNING! DANGER OF DEATH. What irony. Was there here a single place where one was not in danger of death?” (40) Elie clearly notes as the author the ironic sense of the sign displayed because, literally, everywhere at the camp was dangerous! The camp was filled with famine, cruelty, death, and brutality.

Memorable Quotes:

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. (72) As Eliezer arrives at Auschwitz, he is greeted by his first selection. He and his father follow the line that passes a pit of burning babies. It is difficult for even the most hardened reader not to wince at this passage; it stands out as the most horrible tragedy.

One day I was able to get up after gathering all my strength. I wanted to see myself in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes as they stared into mine, has never left me. (52) The narrative’s last lines leave the reader with a sense of hopelessness. Eliezer views himself as dead; innocence is dead; humanity is dead; God is dead.

Additional Comments & Analysis:

I really enjoyed the novel in a whole, and I really learned more about how it was to survive the harsh concentrations of the Holocaust, let alone the most gruesome concentration camps, Auschwitz and Buchenwald. It leaves me wondering how others experienced the influence of the German Nazis. It opened me up to a new breath of knowledge and understanding about the detrimental effects of World War II.

References

1. Wiesel, Elie. “Night.” Translated by Marion Wiesel, Hill and Wang, 2006.
2. Fine, Ellen S. “Legacy of Night: The Literary Universe of Elie Wiesel.” State University of New York Press, 1982.
3. Rosen, Alan. “Sounds of Defiance: The Holocaust, Multilingualism, and the Problem of English.” University of Nebraska Press, 2005.
4. Rittner, Carol. “Teaching the Holocaust through Wiesel’s ‘Night’.” College Teaching, vol. 34, no. 3, 1986, pp. 100-103.
5. Sternlicht, Sanford V. “Elie Wiesel: Voice From the Holocaust.” Twayne’s World Authors Series, 1990.

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