Stylistic Analysis of Night: Tears and Trauma
Sabrina Smith
Pre-AP 2nd
Assignment: Stylistic Analysis of Elie Wiesel’s Memoir, Night
Tears and Trauma
In the Holocaust memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel narrates his trek from a hopeful, naive twelve year-old boy willing to go against his father’s wish to pursue his passion of religion to a tortured, traumatized soul grasping at the tendrils of life years later. Embodying both the physical and emotional pain endured during their time in the concentration camps, the Jews’ dehumanization, trauma, and fear causes the prisoners to change as they’re exposed to horrors. Through Wiesel’s use of syntax to poetically structure the selfishness encountered and dialogue to express changes within the prisoners, he emphasizes the extinction of hope, faith, and character, especially ravaged in their final months in hell.
Throughout the first chapters of his remembrance, Wiesel uses syntax techniques of inverted order of a sentence and asyndeton to provide the strained optimism of the Jews as they experience expulsion from their homes. For example, Wiesel employs inverted order of a sentence to poetically describe the optimism the Jews refused to relinquish during deportation in how “to the last moment people clung to hope.(15)” Being forced from where they grew up, the Jews desperately put their faith in God, expecting that at any moment the Germans will dissipate from their lands and their deportation will cease, the war ending. In addition, Elie illustrates how far he will go to escape deportation through asyndeton as he had “asked my father to sell everything, to liquidate everything, to leave.(9)” Wiesel, in using this device, emphasizes the progression of their departure and hope Elie possesses of getting away, his plan to get away without a trace, relieving his family of future deportation. Although, desperation permeates the plea made by Elie to his father because his plan had no structure, reiterated by the sentence structure and lack of fluidity. In chapters one through five, even when the Jew’s emotional strength is tested, no matter how desperate they become, they cling to the idea that the war will become no more.
In contradiction to the first portion of the book, in chapters six to nine, Wiesel’s use of both syntax techniques above, inverted order of a sentence and asyndeton, transform from the optimism the Jews’ possess to emphasizing their loss of hope and will to live. Up to now, faith has continually been lost throughout the Jewish community, but the extent of that loss and faith is evident through the inverted order of a sentence as they traveled to Buchenwald and “in the early dawn light, I tried to distinguish between the living and those who were no more.”(98)Seeing the dead and the assumed living, Elie has no idea as to who is really breathing, though he sees no point in trying to find a difference between the two, every one of them hanging in the gallows between life and death anyway. Furthermore, Wiesel’s use of asyndeton affects the portrayal of the Jews’ emotional change during their trek to Gleiwitz as Elie, seeing people collapse as gunfire electrifies the air, chants not to “think, don’t stop, run!”(86) Elie desperately wishes to survive the whole ordeal, this mantra becoming the only thought he can manage to pull from the muddle that is his thoughts. Never once does he indicate he hopes for others to survive as well, as he would have at the beginning of the memoir. Disregarding the suffering and concern of others, the Jews’ transform emotionally to only think of themselves, desperate to survive the Germans’ plights at mass murder.
As another way of expressing change, Wiesel uses dialogue to portray the prisoners’ transformation from having a considerate frame of mind willing to inform all to a focus solely on their survival. For example, just after a meeting between Elie’s father and the council, Shlomo [Elie’s father] begrudgedly announces to those willing to listen “‘the news is terrible’…and one word: ’Transports.’” (16) Shlomo is petrified at the idea of liquidating the area they had previously been relocated to, yet he holds sensitivity for those living in his situation as he informs, maneuvering the frame of mind into one preparation rather than making the best of their situation. As another example of dialogue, the Jews change from speaking out of compassion and care for others to turning on themselves in order to survive. In order to prove this, Elie, in the beginning of his imprisonment, finds that the veteran Jews in the camps show empathy towards the new prisoners when they ask “‘Are you scared? We too were…’” (43) The longer imprisoned Jews relate to the new transports, forging a bond through fear and helping make the adaptation process easier. The dialogue foreshadows that the new transports, Elie included, will adopt camp life and fall into “normalcy”.
In contrast to the beginning chapters, dialogue moves the scene into an animalistic and malicious mood, exemplifying how these people were made to live in such conditions that made it impossible to survive without acting selfishly when needed. For example, on the way to Buchenwald the prisoners are willingly throwing out the dead they had cared for before so there is more room in their train car, shouting “‘Here’s one! Take him!’” Thinking selfishly, the prisoners know that as soon as the dead are relieved of their spot, more room will be freed for the living. No longer do the Jews consider others before they speak as they had before; if they speak, it is to benefit them. Similar to the beginning of the memoir, the adoption of the new ways of life becomes evident on the train to Buchenwald when a father is beaten to death by his own flesh so that he may possess a small crumb of bread. As the father feebly attempts to feign the blows, he attempts to call he didn’t “recognize me… You’re killing your father… I have bread… for you too…” After committing such an act, the son’s attempts are proven fruitless as he, too, is overpowered and murdered by the need for food. Emotionally changing from considerate to selfish caused the Jews to act against their own family and friends rather than together as before.
In his memoir, Wiesel notes the shifts in attitude as the Holocaust takes effect on those souls that managed to survive, exemplified through the use of syntax and dialogue. Traumatized by dehumanizing acts, many Jews, Elie and his father included, act selfishly to avoid the same fate as those who were weak: death. Not as many were as fortunate as Elie.
