Rhetorical Devices In Night By Elie Wiesel

Night, by Elie Wiesel, is about his experience in the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel gave a speech, “The Perils of Indifference”, at the white house in front of the president about “indifference” and its effect. Throughout his memoir and speech, Wiesel uses rhetorical devices to encourage his readers to speak out for victims and not be silent when others are in danger.
In the book, Night, Elie is taken to a camp with his family, he then is separated from his mother and sisters. He sees people being thrown into a fire and others are praying. According to Night, “Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?” Elie uses a Rhetorical question to show his faith in God is fading because He chose to be silent during this very hard time for Elie and other Jewish people. After being at the camp for a while, the Piple was sentenced to death, and Elie was one of the people who had to watch the young boy die. According to Night, “I watched other hangings. I never saw a single one of the victims weep. For a long time those dried-up bodies had forgotten the bitter taste of tears.” Elie uses imagery and symbolism to show that Elie’s God died that day. Elie described the

According to Wiesel, “Of course, indifference can be tempting -- more than that, seductive. It is so much easier to look away from victims.” Elie uses the word seductive to describe why people stay silent instead of taking action. Later in the speech, Elie continues to talk about how “Indifference is always the friend of the enemy”. He uses personification to describe indifference as ‘someone’ we wouldn’t want to be friends with. He uses this to tell us indifference is not a good thing. This connects to the thesis because he is discouraging people to stay silent, he wants people to speak