Metaphors And Hyperbole Of Similes In The Night By Michael Wiesel

Night mainly contains similes, metaphors and hyperbole. First, the simile that most stood out to me was “He had some seven hundred prisoners under his command, and they all loved him like a brother”(Wiesel,63). This simile, in a way, compares the officer to the other officers because it shows he treats his prisoners better. It also says that “Nobody had ever endured a blow or even an insult from him”(Wiesel, 63). So we know that he cares enough about those people not to hurt or insult them voluntarily. For the metaphor the most important was “Ahead of you lies a long road paved with suffering”(Wiesel,41). One of the guards used this metaphor to tell the prisoners how truly awful their time in camp will be, infinite and very painful. Lastly, the most significant hyperbole was “We went off to work as usual, our bodies frozen”(Wiesel,78). Of course, there bodies weren’t actually frozen, but they might as well be. The conditions in the camp were so poor that they had little to no ways to keep themselves warm in the winter, which is portrayed in this hyperbole. Figurative language played a big role for understanding the story in a more profound way, and it also lets you interpret the text in different ways.

The image that stands out to me the most is fire. It is referred to a lot, mainly when Elie is talking about the crematorium. After his experience at the camp, he will never hear the word fire and think of it the way he did before the war, the way anyone else would picture