Night By George Wiesel

The First Night Changes Everything

“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed”(Wiesel 32). Wiesel uses the symbolism of night to convey the death, the darkness, and the evils that started with the first night. In the memoir Night, Wiesel uses a distinct writing style to express what he went through, how he changed and how it affected the rest of his life, while in the concentration camps, during the Holocaust. He uses techniques like irony, imagery, symbolism, and a poetic syntax to describe his story of surviving the Holocaust. By applying these techniques, Wiesel projects a tone of bitterness, confusion and grief into his story. Through his writing Wiesel gives us a window into the complete abandonment of reason he adopted and lived in during the Holocaust.

Wiesel uses irony to emphasize the absence of normality in the concentration camps. As he marches into Auschwitz, he notices a sign with the caption, “Warning Danger of death” and he asks himself, “was there a single place here where you were not in danger of death” (137). He has just entered a place where people put up signs that try to prevent you from dying, but at the same time, the purpose of these camps were to kill millions of people. Another use of irony is when the prisoners are packed into the train. Madame Schachter is screaming about a fire and how everyone will be burned up. No one believes her, however this is what actually happens. People arrive to the camp and some are immediately taken to the gas chambers, killed, and then burned. When Wiesel’s foot is injured, he is put into the hospital. There he here’s of how the Russians are coming and he is desperate to get better so he can lea...

... middle of paper ...

...eethoven’s Concerto in that crammed shed. Wiesel confuses us even more by presenting an event that may or may not have happened in his writing and making us decide its validity. He also leaves us with a sense of awe as we marvel at an unlikely source of beauty in such a loathsome place.

Through his use of irony, contrast, and unrealistic descriptions Wiesel crafts a memory that we both shy away from and feel the deepest attraction towards. He skillfully creates a sense of confusion in us as he moves between two poles when describing his experiences and emphasizes the irrationality of the concentration camps with a tone of irony. Through all the suffering Eliezer faces, however, he tries to shine through the ugliness with beauty both through his memories and his writing style. Wiesel writes a masterful memoir that will leave a deep and profound impression on anyone.