Essay on Night by Elie Wiesel

Describe at least one important technique used in the text.

Explain how the technique created an emotional response in you.

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The Holocaust was a mass scale slaughter. Elie Wiesel's memoir 'Night' is his record of his experiences during the Holocaust. He uses a range of techniques such as first person narrative, metaphor and repetition. His writing had a big emotional impact on me, making me feel disgusted, sad and angry. I learned that people who you thought were a part of your nation can easily turn on you just like that. Elie Wiesel's autobiography made me think about what could happen in the future could people easily turn on us like this?

"I didn't know that this was the moment in time and the place where I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever," said Elie Wiesel as he was made to be separated from his family during the selections of the Holocaust. He didn't know before that this would be the last time he sees his mother and his sister but soon after that he would realise that that wouldn't be the worst thing to happen to him. The technique that was used in the quotation was first person narrative using the pronouns 'I/my'. The effect of this was show he was talking about himself and his experiences. The sentence made me feel uneasy, sad and just disgusted that they did this to the Jewish people.

"My son, water.... I'm burning up... My insides," were the last words Elie would hear from his father. The technique that was used in the quotation was a metaphor - his father is not really burning up but he needs water now. This sentence made me feel sad, worried and empathetic for Elie. The guards did not care for Elie's father so all they said was, "Shut up," but he wouldn't. He begged for Elie to help him but Elie knew if he went to help him he would get beaten by the guards, so he just stayed in his bunk listening to his father's cry for help. He was blaming himself because he wasn't able to help him and feeling extremely guilty. The next morning his father's cry was no more and for some reason Elie felt as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

"From the depths of a mirror, a corpse was contemplating me," was said by Elie when he had seen himself after the Holocaust when they had been rescued by the American army. The language technique used in the quotation was also a metaphor. He is looking in the mirror after so long not eating properly and seeing how small he was - obviously he is not an actual corpse because he is not dead, but he might be as small as a corpse. This part really made me feel really sad for him but also relieved and I wondered how he would go about living the rest of his life now that he was free - even thought he may be traumatised he was still free. Elie had been through hell and back but even though he had gone through all of that he was a survivor and a fighter. After the Holocaust, it may have taken him a while to adjust back to the world, but he was still able to fight through everything and come out with the book of his life during the hardest time of his life. 

In conclusion, the Holocaust was a very traumatising time for the Jews they were treated disgustingly and made out like they were less than human and weren't able to fight back for their lives. Many of them were killed for fighting back; they had lost all hope at one point and some were just waiting for their death if they hadn't already been killed. These parts of Elie Wiesel's memoir that I wrote about in my essay with the use of techniques such as first person narration and metaphor, made me feel too many emotions to just say one. He taught me that even if you have a good friendship or even could have lived in the same neighbourhood together since birth, those 'people' you thought you knew could turn on you and make you an outcast. Just like that, your whole life could be turned upside down, very much like a place I'm in right now in college, one wrong move or one wrong person they could spread a rumor and then my life could then be turned upside down too. I consider myself lucky though, because I have some of the best friends I could ask for who would always have my back; if only Elie had those during the Holocaust. Overall, the Night memoir really impacted me and made think more that I need to appreciate the life I have. I thank Elie for teaching me that and I hope that now he is at peace.