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How Does Wiesel Use Metaphors In Night

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Liliana Lopez-Soriano Ms. Salamida English I 6 April 2023 Night: Impact of Cruelty on Faith The author of Night, Eliezer Wiesel, claims, “In the beginning there was faith — which is childish;” after having been in camps for a very long time and having lost his faith after all he lived in the camps. In this story, everything the prisoners witnessed caused them to lose their faith. The prisoners thought they were going to be saved by their God but since nothing happened to save them, they slowly started to lose the strong faith they once had in the beginning. In Night, Weisel portrays the change of faith in the individual, through the use of irony and personification to reveal that when an individual is faced with unspeakable cruelty, they …show more content…

Through Wiesel’s choice of metaphors, he is revealing how careless and cruel the SS officers are towards all the Jews to lose faith. For example, when the prisoners first arrived at Auschwitz, “Not far from us, flames, huge flames, were rising from a ditch. Something was being burned there. A truck drew close and unloaded its hold: small children. Babies!” (Wiesel 32). The flames represent death since there are babies being thrown into the ditch with fire. The flames demonstrate how the SS had control for using fire to scare the prisoners and then the prisoners would follow directions. This also reveals how the death of babies has a big impact on the prisoners which is also a way for them to lose their faith. Additionally, at the end of the story, when Eliezer looked at himself in the mirror he saw, “...a corpse was contemplating me,” (Wiesel 115). The corpse is being compared to death and the loss of faith which it then demonstrates the result of living in the camps. The corpse is the result of the experience the prisoners lived at the camps and how affected they are left because of that experience. Thus, Wiesel conveys through metaphors that the treatment Jews received was very crucial and affected them in many different ways but especially their …show more content…

Through Wiesel’s choice of personificating the cremation he witnessed, he is describing how he and other Jews started to lose their faith. For example, when the prisoners arrived at the camp, they had to watch the cremation of babies, “Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever,” (Wiesel 34). The flames that consumed Eliezer’s faith are demonstrating that when Eliezer first saw the cruelty that Jews went through. Therefore, Eliezer starts to believe that his God does not exist anymore since nothing is being done or nothing is happening to stop the cruelty. Additionally, the moment the prisoners arrived at the camp, they saw the very terrible suffering that the prisoners that had been there were receiving, “Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes,” (Wiesel 34). The moments that murdered his God are revealing how the cruel moments Eliezer watched, left him with no more faith in his God since his God is now dead. Those moments also murdered his soul and dreams given that his dreams were all connected to his faith since he highly believed in his God. Therefore, Wiesel conveys through personification that everything crucial the Jews witnessed at the camp was the cause of their loss of

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