In this column, choose five quotations from the text, one focusing on each of the following literary elements:
Dehumanization is the process of depriving a person or group of positive human qualities, according to the dictionary. Throughout Night it shows a lot of dehumanization examples. It would take hours to name all of them. Some of the ways dehumanization was showed in Night was all of the abuse, having no identity except for a number, and the hunger they felt because they would only get one meal per day.
In the book, Night, Dehumanization majorly affects the Jews. Dehumanization is the process by which the Nazis gradually reduced the Jews to little more than things. It makes the Jews want to give up. There are many examples of dehumanization, including beating, selection, and robbery.
“He leapt on me like a wild animal, hitting me in the chest, his blows growing more and more violent, until I was covered with blood”(Wiesel 60). This was just one of the times in Night where physical violence was used to take the life out of the Jews. They were constantly beaten, most of the time over insignificant reasons, because the Nazis did not want them to fight back. After this particular instance where Elie was beaten by Idek, Elie became significantly quieter in his protests against the Nazi officers. He would not go out of his way to help his fellow prisoners anymore. Even while watching his father get battered Elie thought to himself, “I kept quiet. In fact I was thinking of how to get farther away so that I would not be hit myself. This is what concentration camp life had made of me”(Wiesel 63). The Nazis physically beat the lives out of the Jews. Over time, Elie and the other prisoner’s presences became lesser and lesser because they did not have any strength left inside
Over the course of Eliezer’s holocaust experience in the novel Night, the Jews are gradually reduced to little more that “things” which were a nuisance to Nazis. This process was called dehumanization. Three examples of events that occurred which contributed to the dehumanization of Eliezer, his father, and his fellow Jews are: people were divided both mentally and physically, those who could not work or who showed weakness were killed, and public executions were held.
That dehumanization his like abusing someone to take away somebody's freedom as it how it was back then slavery the whites was treating the black like animals. In the book of night there is like groups of people that's fighting for freedom it's like dehumanization. What i read was the book called “Night” by Elie Wiesel it's how how the holocaust was back thing and how the nazi took over the jews. In the book night, dehumanization is seen by public executions starving the prisoners, and separating the families.
Of these three, the worst is mental dehumanization. Mental dehumanization is the worst because if you are mentally dehumanized, it can affect you physically and emotionally as well. Eliezer was affected most mentally. For example when his father was beaten, Eliezer says, “...I had not even blinked, I had watched and kept silent.” (Wiesel 39). Eliezer is affected so badly that at times, he doesn’t care for his father. Something similar happens when his father is sick and dies. His father’s last words to him were calling for Eliezer, and he didn’t move. He ignored him on purpose. “Free at last!” (Wiesel 112). Eliezer is sad when his father dies, but is more relieved because he can take care of himself now. Another way Eliezer is dehumanized mentally is through his religion. Before he was sent to the concentration camps, Eliezer believed God always knew best. But as the memoir goes on, Eliezer loses his faith. After the hangings, the prisoners said a prayer. But Eliezer says, “Why, but why would I bless His name?...He created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many other factories of death” (Wiesel 67). Eliezer, and soon, the rest of the Jewish prisoners, wonders why God would let this happen. People were starting to not believe in God. Out of the three ways Jews were dehumanized, mental was the worst and Eliezer was most affected by mental
On the subject of this, the first experience of dehumanization Wiesel experienced was when he and his family were forced into wagons packed with other innocent jews and he says, “After two days of travel, thirst became intolerable, as did the heat” (Wiesel 23). For two days, eighty jews were packed together like sardines on train wagons with no food or water. This horrified me on how the Nazis treated them like prisoners guilty of crimes that justified their own actions against the Jews. The three stages of dehumanization, which is mental, physical, and emotional, were represented throughout the memoir. Mental dehumanization was the stage in which saddened me the most. An example was when Wiesel and all the jewish prisoners in Bruna had assembled on the Appelplatz on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, his thoughts were, “Why, but why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled. Because he caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves?” (Wiesel 67). Elie Wiesel was very religious before he
One of Wiesel 's strengths in Night is to show the full face of dehumanization. It is something that the Nazis perpetrated against the people they imprisoned. The tattooing of numbers on the prisoners, something that Eleizer notes, is of extreme importance. A- 7713 is by definition an example of dehumanization because it robs the humanity of the individual. The abuses that the Nazis perpetrate on their prisoners is another example of dehumanization. The public beatings, the hanging of prisoners and making others walk past them, as well as the selection process are all examples of dehumanization. When Eliezer has to run at full speed to avoid being noticed during one of the selection processes, it is a reminder as to how large a role dehumanization
It is a human instinct to prioritize one's well-being before others. We are constantly confronted with situations where we as humans have to take action for our own contentment. In the book, Night by Elie Wiesel, he shares his own traumatic experience of the Holocaust, which was a mass murder of 12 million Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, basically anyone who is different and wouldn’t fit into Adolf Hitler’s image of a perfect society. Despite how ruthless the Holocaust was, the Elie and his fellow prisoners fought and fought for their freedom, displaying how much humanity will fight for survival. By looking at the following examples: A child kills his own father for a loaf of bread, a son leaving his father behind during one of the march so he would not die, and Elie debating if he should let his father die so he could have a higher chance of surviving. It becomes clear that Elie Wiesel`s commentary on human nature is that, during extreme circumstances, people are selfish and would achieve anything for their own survival.
“I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name.” For many Jewish people in the time of the Holocaust, this was the case. As the Nazis attacked the Jews, they treated them harshly. No matter how old or young or whether they were a male or female, they were treated like animals. The Nazis believed that Jews were a nuisance to them. In the book Night, they describe events that happened to one individual, Eliezer Wiesel. The three acts of dehumanization in Night are how the Jews were forced out of Sighet,how all families were separated, and having to travel by foot in freezing conditions.
In the novel Night the protagonist, Elie Wiesel, narrates his experiences as a young Jewish boy surviving the Holocaust. Elie 's autobiographical memoir informs the reader about how the Nazis captured the Jews and enslaved them in concentration camps, where they experienced the absolute worst forms of torture, abuse and inhumane treatment. Dehumanization is shown in the story when the Jews were stripped of their identities and belongings, making them feel worthless as people. From the start of Elie Wiesel 's journey of the death camps, his beliefs of his own religion is fragile as he starts to lose his faith. Lastly, camaraderie is present as people in the camps are all surviving together to stay alive so as a result the people in the camp shine light on other people 's darkness.
Dehumanization is the process by which the Nazis gradually reduced the Jews to little more than "things" which were a nuisance to them. The Jews in these concentration camps were greatly disrespected. They experienced several beatings, were undernourished, and overworked. Elie and the other Jews eventually lost faith in God, and witness unpleasant events never to be seen again.
In Elie Wiesel’s “Night”, Elie begins the novel living a normal life in the small town of Sighet in Transylvania. He lives with a family of six, with his mother, father, and three sisters. The story picks up quickly after the Nazis move in, first taking away the town’s rights to own any gold, jewelry, or any valuables, then no longer have the right to restaurants, cafes, synagogues, or to even travel by rail. Soon the town of Sighet then came the ghettos. It was prohibited from leaving their homes after six o 'clock in the evening. Then two Ghettos were created in Sighet, one larger one in the center of town and another smaller one a few alleys away. Ghettos were primarily used to keep the Jews from escaping, and to constantly manage their location. Soon after life began to return to normal until transport vehicles started to come to ship off the Jews to concentration camps. In less then a week of the arrival of the transport vehicles all the people of Sighet were in cable cars on their route to concentration camps. Upon the arrival of the Jews the Nazis had prepared a cruel arrangement of steps to properly manage the Jews. The Nazis were determined to have their identity be stripped away from them, starting with the choice of clothes being worn, forced to wear prison uniforms. Next they were forced to shaved their heads and every hair on their body, losing the choice of appearance. Finally the Nazis gave each person a tattoo of a number
I wasn’t sure how he got that way. Maybe because he had to handle everything by himself, but that wouldn’t make sense. He never learned how to be strong. He just was.