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Examples Of Juxtaposition In Night By Elie Wiesel

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Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night tells the unforgettable tale of his account of the savagery and brutality the Nazis showed during the Holocaust. Night depicts the story of a budding Jew from the small town of Sighet named Eliezer. He and his family are exiled to the concentration camp known as Auschwitz. He must master the skills needed to survive with his father’s guidance until he finds liberation from the monstrosity that is the camp. This memoir, however, hides a far more meaningful lesson that can only be revealed through careful analyzation. To develop the theme of denial and its consequences, Wiesel uses juxtaposition and characterization. By using juxtaposition, Elie uncovers the theme of indifference and its consequences. Near the …show more content…

In the beginning of the book, Wiesel tells the story of his mentor, Moshie the Beadle. Because he is a foreign Jew, the Germans chose him and others like him to be deported before the rest of the Jews. When he is deported, he witnesses the terrible slaughter of his people; moreover, his escape was entirely due to him making himself irrelevant, completely unnoticeable. “He had mastered the art of rendering himself insignificant, invisible” (3). After his escape, he attempts to warn the Jews about the nightmare that would soon become a reality. Because he had made himself unseen, unimportant, the people of Sighet disregarded and chose not to believe what he said, in hopes that his fate would not fall upon them. Wiesel writes on page 7, “But people not only refused to believe his tales, they refused to listen. Some even insinuated that he only wanted their pity, that he was imagining things. Others flatly said that he had gone mad.” However, Moshie the beadle was not the only one driven to insanity. On Elie’s “journey” to Auschwitz by cattle car, he witnesses a woman broken with grief: Mrs. Shachter. She, on page 25, screams, “Jews listen to me! I see fire! I see flames!” Because of this, the Jews in the car went to the extreme extent to beat her in order to keep her silent as a result of the fear of their unknown destiny. How the Jews treated Moshie and Mrs. Shachter

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