Elie Wiesel’s memoir ‘Night’ shows concepts of dehumanisation and savagery through the times of the Holocaust. Wiesel documents his experiences of hardship and atrocities to warn future generations of what occurred so that history doesn’t repeat itself.
Through two passages we see images of the brutality that had occurred throughout the journey Elie had experienced. Although the passages are similar, they differ from each other because they’re both different experiences. In the first selected passage we see images of brutality being witnessed by a young boy whose beliefs are destroyed and there is no help, only ‘silence’.In the second selected passage the horror of the 42+ mile death march was documented which occurred later in the memoir. In the first selected passage, Elie recaps his first night in camp at Auschwitz.
He tells us about the brutality he witnessed and constantly repeats himself. Whenever a sentence is started, it begins with ‘Never shall I forget’. This suggests that the life that was being lived was so brutal and tragic that the moments will be unforgettable. The passage is in the voice of the adult author in first person future tense which is different from the rest of the book, as it’s in first person present tense.
The brutality was projected through great rhetorical power in repeating ‘Never’ which was said eight times in the whole passage, which emphasises the severe impact of the experience. The last word ‘never’ becomes very dramatic as it’s a single worded sentence. This passages emphasises how Elie had to live throughout the Holocaust, as he had to travel to many camps to seek survival. It was suggested that Elie had lost his faith because there is no God. There was only the ‘silent sky’ and the ‘nocturnal silence’; there was no protection from a benevolent God.His faith had been ‘murdered and his faith was ‘consumed’ by the flames.
This passage is significant as the title of the memoir was from this passage because Elie’s life turned into ‘one long night’ which is suggested to be a central metaphor. In the second selected passage it contrasts a lot from the first one. The major contrast is that it’s written in first person present tense, whereas the first passage was written in first person future tense. In this passage, Elie documents the 42 mile death march from Buna.Brutality is witnessed throughout this passage as Elie hurts his foot and tries to bare the pain whilst running.
The prisoners were extremely dehumanised due to the circumstances as they were referred to as ‘filthy dogs’, ‘automatons’ and Elie was described as a ‘machine’. The tone in this passage is a lot more jumbled whereas the tone in the other passage is a lot more consistent as it’s very repetitive. At the end of this passage, Elie is on the verge of giving up. He’s exhausted and has suffered too much and his tone is very different from the strong, implacable one in the first passage.
He survives this and lives to document it for the future, so it is ‘never’ forgotten; even if that is as ‘long as God himself’. These two passages do contrast each other and are also very similar. They’re similar because they both document Elie’s experiences throughout the situations and circumstances he had to overcome in order to survive. They’re written in different tenses and the tones are also very different.
In the first passage, the tone is very strong whereas in the second passage, his tone shifts to a more exhausted and suffering tone.In conclusion, the passages from ‘Night’ both relate to the author’s intentions. His intentions were to document his experiences of the Holocaust and its atrocities; to warn future generations about what happened so that it’s not repeated and to evidently show brutality and savagery that humans are capable of. This was a success as the entire book ties in together and clearly shows the intentions of the author. The two passages that were compared work well with each other, as they both easily relate to each other, yet contrast at the same time.
