Language Board - Holden Coelho by Holden Coelho

Elie uses rhetorical questions before the book even starts

holdencoelhoplsd — 2024-02-02 14:44:55 UTC

Elie Wiesel's Night is a flashback, in it's entirety. To get a better grasp on this, Elie's Preface explains it better by asking rhetorical questions. "Or was it simply to preserve a record of the ordeal I endured as an adolescent, at an age when one's knowledge of death and evil should be limited to what one discovers in literature?" (Wiesel Preface 1). Elie's entire book of Night is his flashback, re-experiencing it through the eyes of an adult. This is why it feels mature compared to the chapter we read of "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas", because though Elie went through it as a child, he grasped it fully with age, and retold the story with the maturity of the subject. Elie often writes with a focused, detailed tone, and to see him, as he is now, asking himself why he wrote Night adds to the effect of how much he's matured, and changed. How when he's looking back at the experience, he tells the tale with maturity, though he was a child when he went through it. Elie Wiesel uses rhetorical questions as a mirror, to look back into himself, and show the readers what's inside.

In the preface, Wiesel spins a web with Anaphoric silk.

holdencoelhoplsd — 2024-02-06 14:55:28 UTC

Elie uses Anaphora to give the readers a look into what's to come, using the starter Never Shall I, which is later condensed to just Never, to reference the tragedy he went through as a boy. "Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed." (Wiesel Preface). He continues on, eventually reaching a powerful ending. "Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes. Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never." (Wiesel Preface). Elie's use of anaphora doubles as a foreshadow into the book, with quotes like "Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky." (Wiesel Preface) shining light on the horrible events brought on the Jewish People by Adolf Hitler.

Elie gives the reader a picture right off the page.

holdencoelhoplsd — 2024-02-06 15:04:58 UTC

Elie Wiesel is an accomplished writer, no doubt, and most of that reason can be traced back to his illustration. Not in watercolors or pen, but in text. He uses descriptors to make his words fly off the page and into your head. Even in the worst of situations, he paints a picture with a typewriter. At the culminating end of Night's Chapter 2, Elie arrived at Birkenau. Wiesel wrote "We stared at the flames in the darkness. A wretched stench floated in the air. Abruptly, our doors opened. Strange-looking creatures, dressed in striped jackets and black pants, jumped into the wagon. Holding flashlights and sticks, they began to strike at us left and right, shouting: "Everybody out! Leave everything inside. Hurry up!" We jumped out. I glanced at Mrs. Schächter. Her little boy was still holding her hand. In front of us, those flames. In the air, the smell of burning flesh. It must have been around midnight. We had arrived. In Birkenau." (Wiesel 28). The Mrs. Schächter in question had been beaten on the train ride, she had been seeing fires, and now it's really come to be. In vivid detail, Elie describes his oppressors as strange looking creatures, to signify they were different from Elie, they were heartless, remorseless. Wiesel's uncanny imagery may be hard to bear, but Elie's writing runs a movie in your head.

Elie Wiesel used Prolepsis to give us a look into the future

holdencoelhoplsd — 2024-02-21 14:58:57 UTC

Elie Wiesel uses complicated literary devices to craft his books, especially so in his novel, Night, but Elie can also make things happen using simpler concepts. For example, Elie uses Prolepsis, which is essentially a flash forward into the future, to share a story from his personal life that relates to the story, but is not a part of the story. When bread is thrown at the Jews by german officers in chapter 7, Elie recounts a story that takes place "YEARS LATER, I (Elie) witnessed a similar spectacle in Aden. Our ship's passengers amused themselves by throwing coins to the "natives," who dove to retrieve them. An elegant Parisian lady took great pleasure in this game." The Parisian lady was throwing coins to the point a young boy would attempt to strangle another for them. When Elie pleaded with her to stop, she said she "likes to give to charity". Elie's use of prolepsis gives us this story without forcing it into the narrative.

Elie uses Personification to identify shadows as living.

holdencoelhoplsd — 2024-03-02 14:52:16 UTC

Elie's experience was traumatizing. Every part of it, so when it lingers, things begin to contort. "The shadows around me roused themselves as if from a deep sleep and left silently in every direction" (Wiesel 14). Elie notices the shadows, which in his mind are waking up and scurrying along by themselves. Leaving by themselves. He adds intensity to the moment by adding a touch of persona to the shadows. Night makes this part, this passage stand out especially by adding in miniature details. Elie is an adult, but this experience was through a child's eyes. And that, after everything, is what makes Night more heart wrenching to read. Elie demonstrates his youth in this experience, using personification to make the shadows seem alive.

Elie operates solely in a flashback.

holdencoelhoplsd — 2024-03-02 14:59:26 UTC

Night is a retelling of the experience Elie Wiesel had as a kid being forced into a concentration camp, experiencing the Holocaust. Almost every word emitted from this book is a flashback. Even the touch of prolepsis when a woman threw coins for "charity", that was a flashback too. Elie is recounting, as most non-fiction stories do, rather than tell it as he's experiencing it currently. Elie lists one of the reasons he could be writing the book as a memory of "the ordeal I (Elie) endured as an adolescent, at an age when one's knowledge of death and evil should be limited to what one discovers in literature?" (Wiesel Preface). Adding onto this, Elie also uses past-tense language throughout the book, such as "The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me." (Wiesel 115). A corpse stared at him through a mirror, and Elie's language reflects the ending of the book as the past. In his past.

Elie sees a woman smile, but not out of joy.

holdencoelhoplsd — 2024-03-02 15:09:57 UTC

"She was smiling her mournful smile as she slipped me a crust of bread. She looked straight into my eyes. I knew she wanted to talk to me but that she was paralyzed with fear" (Wiesel 53). This is one of Elie's experiences on the train from hell he was placed on. Smiles are a sign of happiness, yes, but not here. Only fear illuminated this woman, there was nothing to smile for, to live for at this point. But, she smiled, slipping Elie a crust of bread. Why? She had compassion, yes, but she lacked any sign of light in her smile. This is an oxymoron. This is an example of an oxymoron because smiles are associated with joy and pleasant feelings, although the woman's is linked to fear and anxiety. With the hatred being radiated out by Adolf Hitler, by the Nazis being directed toward her, leaving her and hundreds of thousands of Jews to live in fear. She was generous, but she wasn't happy. She smiled, but she pained, feared. Elie keeps in this minor detail to shine a light on the emotions others were feeling through this time.

Elie uses Dramatic Irony in Night to make a point.

holdencoelhoplsd — 2024-03-02 15:15:31 UTC

Irony is one of the most common literary devices you'll see. A self contradiction, or one found. It's easy to pull off, but to that extent hardest to make work, especially in a setting such as Night. However, Elie found a way using a variation called "Dramatic Irony". This is a heavier form of the device. usually to deal with more serious problems. Elie poses an important question when he sees signs hanging, warning him of death in his concentration camp. "At every step, white signs with black skull looked down on us. The inscription: WARNING! DANGER OF DEATH. What irony. Was there here a single place where one was not in danger of death" (Wiesel 40)? Elie notes as an author the ironic sense of the sign displayed because every part of the camp was dangerous, associated with death. He even mentions it himself. saying "What irony" (Wiesel 40).

There were horrible people in that camp, and Elie alluded to one, Dr. Mengele.

holdencoelhoplsd — 2024-03-02 15:19:34 UTC

Elie uses allusion to show how he dodged a bullet from a man who he didn't know who was then, but now recognizes clear as day as the horrifying figure, the closest real life thing to a mad scientist, Dr. Mengele. "We continued to walk until we came to a crossroads. Standing in the middle of it was, though I didn't know it then, Dr. Mengele, the notorious Dr. Mengele" (Wiesel 20). You either need to know or do some research to find out that Dr. Mengele is infamous for his inhumane medical research on twins in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Making an allusion to Dr. Mengele adds to the understanding of what a horrific place to which Eliezer and his family have been brought. Adding this bit makes his experience here just a tinge more horrid, knowing that the man with no regard for human life, who experiments on living beings, was right there with him, and could have even taken him at the crossroads.

Elie uses hyperbole, not to stretch the truth, but to show how he felt about a conversation.

holdencoelhoplsd — 2024-03-02 15:26:02 UTC

Hyperbole is an exaggeration of events, used to make a point. If you're in school and you're waiting on the bell, you may say it's "like the clock ticked backwards". If you were on a long walk, you could claim your legs are "turning to dust with each step". Sure, it isn't true. It's an exaggeration. People will know what you mean by it, but it makes what you're saying clearer by making it bigger. Elie utilizes this trick for a quick talk he had "This conversation lasted no more than a few seconds. It seemed like an eternity" (Wiesel 32). When Elie implies that the conversation felt like an eternity, of course he doesn't literally mean a whole eternity; He uses such an exaggeration to convey the feeling of length the conversation. It felt to him like it drew on and on, and on and on, even though it was a minuscule amount of time.