Essay Question:
Describe at least one important technique used in the text.
Explain how the technique created an emotional response in you.
The Holocaust was a historical event that was very sad and disturbing. We read the memoir 'Night' by Elie Wiesel. Elie Wiesel in this book talks about how he and other Jews had been sent to concentration camps by the Nazis that worked for Adolf Hitler. He uses a range of techniques such as first person narration, negative sentences and repetition. These types of techniques had a big emotional impact on me, because it's sad to imagine what all these innocent people went through.
One part of the story that affected me was when Elie and his family were split up and taken away to different concentration camps. He uses first person narration with the pronoun 'I' which means we can see his point of view and how he is feeling. "And I walked on with my father, with the men. I didn't know that this was the moment in time and place where I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever. I kept walking, my father holding my hand." Reading this made me feel sad because Elie had to leave his mother and his siblings with his father to a different camp site knowing that he'd never see his mother or siblings again.
Another part of the story that hurt me quite the most was when innocent kids and adults had been put into pits of fire and gas chambers. Elie and his father were talking to an inmate that had suddenly gotten angry at Elie because he wasn't understanding that he was on the verge of getting killed, "We didn't know. Nobody told us. He couldn't believe his ears. His tone became even harsher, 'Over there. Do you see the chimney over there? Do you see it?'" This technique is repetition, the inmate repeats the phrases, 'over there' and 'Do you see?' The repetition shows us how he was getting frustrated by trying to tell them that they're near death and they weren't paying attention to what he was trying to say. It made me feel horrible, disgusted and sad that a lot of innocent children, people and families got burnt and killed all because of their race.
The last part of the story that affected me was when Elie had to watch his father get beaten up by the SS officer, knowing that he'd soon die. The technique is negative sentences. He starts two sentences with the word 'No' and the last sentence ends with a negative phrase using 'not', "No prayers were said over his tomb. No candle lit in his memory. His last word had been my name. He had called out to me and I had not answered." The effect of this is to show no one had any candles lit for his father and no prayers or speeches were said. It's sad that Elie couldn't even light a candle for his own father that had just passed. No one really noticed or cared for Elie's dad. Everyone only thought of Elie and his dad as just another hopeless Jew.
Through the use of techniques such as first person narration, negative sentences and repetition, Elie Wiesel's memoir impacted me because himself and others had to be a part of something so cruel and horrible. Families had been split up and a lot of people had died because of their religion and race. Jews shouldn't have been put through this. We are all the same no matter our ethnicity and looks. World War 2 took advantage of Jews because of their race and religion. Innocent normal adults, elders and children had been killed because of the Nazis and Hitler himself. Some Jews went to concentration camps and only some made it out alive.
