Literary Techniques Used In Night By Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel’s Night is an account of Wiesel’s life during the holocaust, during which he and his father were imprisoned in a concentration camp, initially Auschwitz, and later Buchenwald. Though the context of this piece may suggest it is strictly a historical memoir of Wiesel, the account is presented through complex literary techniques that produce a powerful and complex narrative which impacts the reader throughout. This testimony is given through the character of Eliezer, which is representative of Wiesel himself, with certain central themes present. The most prevalent theme presented by Night revolves around the way the holocaust challenges Eliezer’s faith in God, which Wiesel also likely experienced himself. For example, Eliezer begins

These future events are recalled as they relate to the narrative. This is first present after he describes the French woman he met in the electrical warehouse, when she says something comforting to him in perfect German. Immediately after this he recalls a time many years later when he finds her in Paris and the two reconnect. At this point he learns that she was also Jewish, evading the concentration camps with forged documents, and that even though her speaking to him in German risked her safety, she did it because, “I knew that you would not betray me,” (Wiesel 79). The point of this and other references to future events like it are meant to show the long-term effects the holocaust had on those who were affected by it such as Eliezer and the French girl. This is further supported by a similar excerpt later in the novel, when Eliezer witnesses the men in a wagon fight over a piece of bread, and then witnesses something similar years later. In this excerpt Wiesel describes a time when he saw a rich woman throwing coins to two young boys, and he watches them, “desperately fighting in the water, one trying to strangle the other,” (Wiesel 100). These two acts of cruelty, the Germans throwing bread and the woman throwing coins, directly mirror one another, and Wiesel’s reaction is indicative of the way his experiences have changed him. The presentation of these impacts further the intimate nature of the text, they force the reader to look at the holocaust as more than a historical