Elie Wiesel's The Night Trilogy

The Night Trilogy is made of three books written by Elie Wiesel. Each book highlights a time period in Wiesel’s life; the first being about his time during the holocaust as a Jew, the second about his time in a Jewish underground movement, the third about his time after the war and his struggle to live a normal life. The book I chose to read was the third book, Day. I discovered this book from viewing the list of suggested narratives to read. As I went through the list I read the descriptions under the books and The Night Trilogy was one of the books that really sparked my interest. I was intrigued in this series because it mentions how it is an autobiography of the author’s time in holocaust and the struggles he faces for the rest of his life

telling, and figurative language throughout his writing. I clearly pictured and understood everything from the beginning to the end of the book. For instance, he does an amazing job of showing vs telling when he describes the moment he was hit by a taxi. The description begins with “What did I hear first?” The grotesque screeching of brakes or the shrill of a woman? I no longer remember. When I came to, for a fraction of a second, I was laying on my back in the middle of the street. In a tarnished mirror a multitude of heads were bending over me” (Wiesel 239). During the time Wiesel was in the hospital, he focuses on the pain he was feeling. He wrote “I could feel the fever, as it spread, seize me by the hair, which seemed like a burning torch. The fever was throwing me from one world into another, up and down, very high up and very far down, as if it meant to teach me the cold of high places and the heat of the abysses” (Wiesel 246). This little section uses powerful similes and personification to illustrate the burning and cold pain he felt. These stylistic elements were very effective because they constantly kept an image in my mind, which made me more interested in the book. The type of audience is for people who are in high school and above because the vocabulary is advanced and more importantly it is a mature topic. People who do not like seeing harsh or devastating images that people actually experienced during and

It truly opened my mind to how corrupted someone can become when your whole life is taking away. Wiesel as a young boy had a strong religious background, but the holocaust changed all that and now everyday he questions the purpose of god and god’s intentions. He even calls himself throughout the story the living dead because he felt as though he died the day he lost his entire family; he believes there is not life in him anymore. I believe he thinks this because of the guilt he feels for surviving, while many did not. I highly recommend for people to read Day, especially those who like a more emotional and powerful book. The way it is written will actually make you feel the pain and sorrow of the author. I learned awful, but true facts about the holocaust. This book really book really gets you to think and realize how unless you experienced yourself, you can never truly know how Wiesel feels. Wiesel wrote this book the best he could, but he still left out a lot about his life and even bent some of the truth because he could not write some of the unspeakable things he has