Examples Of Figurative Language In Night By Elie Wiesel

In two years, 1.1 million people were starved, beaten, and murdered by the Nazi party in just Auschwitz's concentration camp alone; there were at least twenty-seven main camps. Arguments have arisen regarding whether Night by Eli Weisel, a memoir that depicts such horrific acts, is appropriate or necessary for high schoolers to read. A written work such as Night prevents the repetition of history when read and analyzed by the new generations due to its blatant language regarding the events that took place. Throughout Night, Wiesel's overt and figurative language allows the reader to fully understand the horrible events he first-handedly experienced. "The camp looked as though it had been through an epidemic, empty and dead" (Wiesel 47).

His use of the words "empty" and "dead" furthers the reader's understanding of the environment in the camps being full of anguish and misery. "Bread, soup - these were my whole life. I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time." His use of the personification of his stomach allows the reader to understand and almost feel the physical abuse they experienced by being starved. The quote allows the reader to see his hunger as a separate physical being by displaying it controlling his life more than he was. His use of palpable descriptions causes the reader to see his genuine perspective of the horrible events he experienced in the camps; "A shadow had lain down beside him. And this shadow threw itself over him. Stunned by the blows, the old man was

An event that proves that history repeats itself is the creation and continuation of the Japanese Internment Camps. They began in the middle of World War II and continued after it ended. One thousand six hundred people died due to malnourishment, abuse, and inadequate medical care, very similar to the treatment of Jewish people described in Night; "Bread, soup - these were my whole life. I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time" (Wiesel 52). People lost their properties and culture due to hatred, similar to the described environment when the Jews were forced to go to the concentration camps; "Packed into cattle cars, the Jews are tormented by nearly unbearable conditions. There is almost no air to breathe, the heat is intense, there is no room to sit, and everyone is hungry and thirsty" (Wiesel 102) The hate people hold for those different from them causes these horrific events to continue to take place. Another example of history repeating itself and displaying people's tendency to dispel those who are different is exhibited in the late 1800s to the 1990s in the United States of America with Native American Residential Schools. The government created Native American Residential Schools to manipulate Native American parents into