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  • Essay / Night' by Elie Wiesel: Literary devices

    Could you one day imagine having everything taken away from you? your home, your family, your freedom? It is unfathomable, and yet it is a reality for more than 10 million people who were victims of the Holocaust. Wiesel's story is absolutely tragic and breathtaking. His words of woe resonate with you on an extremely deep level. It's remarkably strange and depressing, you almost don't want to continue but it's so exciting and so interesting. Wiesel definitely tried to put you in his place. His use of anaphora, imagery and symbolism made it closer and more realistic. It also conveyed its theme, freedom and confinement. His confinement, both figuratively and mentally, was extremely well explained by him. Using words and examples that we could relate to helped us a lot. It brought us closer together and immersed us more in his story. Anaphora is when a word is repeated several times to emphasize its importance and meaning to the text and author. Imagery is when an author describes things vividly, using lots of adjectives to give the reader a mental picture of what the author is seeing, this also makes the text much more interesting. Symbolism is when the author uses an event or thing to represent something else, for example, a certain situation regarding a caged dog does not necessarily mean a literal caged dog but represents freedom and confinement. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In Night, Wiesel uses anaphora constantly, constantly repeating the word “night.” It is used to emphasize the mood. What is night? Aside from the time of day, it's dark, scary, and unsettling. All of this describes his time in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. He constantly emphasizes this word, repeating it to impress on us that “night” is a completely horrible thing. When he connects it to such a tragic and horrible time, we begin to associate “night” with these events and the feelings associated with them. The “night” was not really darkness as in the absence of light but as in the tragedy and suffering of him and his people. It is never really used in the denotation attributed to it. The following quote shows his repetition of “night”: “I will never forget that night, the first night in camp, which turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. I will never forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams into dust. I will never forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God himself. Never.' while yes, it uses "night" in its denotation, this is also interpreted as to its connotation. Wiesel almost never uses "night" to mean "the night", he uses it to describe his feelings and his dark, saddened and depressed mood. Another example is when he states: “The last night in Buna. Again, the last night. The last night at home, the last night in the ghetto, the last night in the cattle car, and now the last night in Buna. How long did our lives last from one “last night” to the next? » He also uses symbolism to represent freedom and confinement. Symbolism is when one thing represents something else. Wiesel uses this a lot when he writes, for example, unrelated to the theme, about how Nazi soldiers called Jews devils and burned them in pits representing hell. In the book, the Jews were.