My Essay on "Night" by Elie Wiesel

Final Essay - Extended Written Text - Night

Describe at least one important technique used in the text. 

Explain how the technique created an emotional response in you.

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In the Holocaust memoir ‘Night’ by Elie Wiesel, we are introduced to his life and time during World War II, when he was imprisoned in the infamous concentration camp, Auschwitz. I was emotionally impacted by three major events that were told throughout the story. These events were Elie watching the burning children’s bodies, the hanging of the Pipel, and the prisoners fighting in the cattle cars for bread. The writer uses a range of language features, including sibilance, repetition, and descriptive verbs, to describe his experiences in the concentration camp. Elie Wiesel’s purpose in writing this memoir was to tell his story and educate people on how awful the concentration camps were.

One event that impacted me emotionally was Elie’s first night in camp, where he watched the guards burn the bodies of children, toddlers, and babies in a pit of fire. The Author used the technique of sibilance, this is the repeated use of the s sound “Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.”

This gave the poem more rhythm and helped it flow more, helping the poem create a larger emotional impact on the reader. This event impacted me emotionally, making me feel sorrow and sadness for Elie and the children’s families, watching and knowing they will never see their loved ones again. It also shocked me that the guards could do such terrible things to innocent people, let alone children.

Another event that impacted me emotionally was the hanging of the Pipel. This sentence used the technique of repetition. This is when a word or words are repeated, “But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing...” This technique emphasised how the boy was still alive and suffering. This made me feel sorry for the boy, who had to endure the pain and agony of being hung, unlike the adults whose necks were snapped and were killed instantly.

A final event that impacted me emotionally was when the prisoners fought in the cattle cars for bread. This text used descriptive verbs, “Soon, pieces of bread were falling into the wagons from all sides. And the spectators observed these emaciated creatures ready to kill for a crust of bread.”. This gave me a better visualisation of what was happening and how hungry these prisoners were. The event made me feel enraged that the spectators were throwing bread into the cattle cars, to watch them fight for their amusement, treating them like they were trash and less than human.

After reading this book, it has given me a larger understanding of what life was like in the concentration camps, and overall during the holocaust. The event that I feel emotionally impacted me the most was the hanging of the Pipel. I believe this affected me the most because he was only a child and the suffering and torture he had to endure was disgusting. I hope that after others have read this book too, they also gain a better understanding of how bad Hitler and the Nazis were.