In his Holocaust memoir Night, Elie Wiesel paints a metaphorical picture of the suffering and pain that one would experience when living in the brutal atmosphere that is Birkenau, Auschwitz, Buna, Buchenwald, and Gleiwitz. As Wiesel recounts his year spent ‘living’ in these camps, he uses diction and syntax such as juxtaposition to help his seemingly-hopeless cause of getting the occurrence of the unthinkable across to the reader.
Wiesel’s use of effacing diction differs as the memoir progresses, changing from diction referring to physical destruction and deterioration to diction that is more focused on the mental and emotional destruction of the jews. For example, Wiesel and the other Jews who live in the ghetto are being crammed into the cattle cars to be transported to Birkenau. After being forced to stand up for, presumably, many hours, Wiesel and the others arrive in Birkenau and are met with ‘the smell of burning flesh’ (28) not to mention that they are welcomed by an ‘SS man, [whose] machine gun [was] trained on us’ (29). Because of the use of negative diction directly linked to physical destruction, such as machine gun and burning flesh, the reader receives a disturbing mental picture. Another great example of physical-demolition related diction is when the Jews are forced into Birkenau. Another example would be when the Jews enter, after entering, they are separated by gender and their fate is decided. While waiting in line, an inmate appears before them and asks them why they think they are at the camp. Before the question even seems to have a minute to linger in the air, someone dares to reply to him, and after failing to respond correctly, the inmate explains by saying “Over there, that’s where they will take you. Over there will be your grave. You still don’t understand?…Don’t you understand anything? You will be burned! Burned to a cinder! Turned into ashes!” (31). The inmate’s explanation of what will become of the Jews has many clear examples of physical, destruction-related diction within it such as grave, burned, cinder, and ashes. Because Wiesel chooses to include this particular wording of the unnamed inmate’s explanation, Wiesel allows the reader to get an understanding of just what will happen to the Jews. Therefore, Wiesel’s use of diction that is relative to physical ruination allows the reader to visualize the suffering that the Jews went through during the Holocaust.
However, as Wiesel’s narrative continues, the presentation of physical-destruction related diction slowly fades and transforms into that of emotional and dehumanizing diction that shows the changing of the Jews’ individual personalities. An example of this would be when the Jews are forced to evacuate the camp and march for 42 miles. In an effort to describe the indescribable, Wiesel states “We were no longer marching, we were running. Like automatons….I was putting one foot in front of the other, like a machine….” (85). In this particular portion of the memoir, Wiesel uses powerful diction that portrays the reduction of the Jews’ humanity; with words such as automaton and machine being portrayed as similes to the Jews, one can only imagine the Jews as inhuman creatures or things. After the march, the Jews are yet again crammed into cattle cars and, for 10 days, ride in them until their arrival in Buchenwald. Before their arrival, the Jews are riding in the cars, waiting for their next stop, when bystanders begin tossing slices of bread into the cars. Consequently, the Jews begin fighting as “an extraordinary vitality possessed them, sharpening their teeth and nails” (101). Soon after the bread-tossing ends, a harsh wind begins to blow, a gust so strong that, a few cars down from Wiesel, “a cry rose in the wagon, the cry of a wounded animal. Someone had just died.” (103). The author’s using such strong, animalistic diction in this part of the memoir supplies the reader with an abundance of images of the inhuman characteristics of the Jews’ new personalities, whereas in the first five chapters of the memoir Wiesel’s use of diction is primarily related to physical destruction.
Many great examples of syntax are observed, more specifically juxtaposition, to achieve an almost comical effect and lighten the mood during intense, impactful parts of the memoir. For example, right before the Jews are supposed to be deported to Birkenau, Wiesel states that “Monday went by like a small summer cloud, like a dream in the first hours of dawn….It was to be the last night we spent in our homes.” (18). Wiesel uses juxtaposition in this quote by comparing the last night that Wiesel’s family is to stay in their home to a small summer cloud to give the reader a break from the chaos that is occurring. Another example of juxtaposition is when the Jews are marching from Birkenau to Auschwitz. Wiesel seems to wish to get away from his current and horrid reality because when he and the other jews are arriving into Auschwitz, he states “the march had lasted half an hour. Looking around me, I noticed that the barbed wire was behind us. We had left the camp. It was a beautiful day in May. The fragrances of spring were in the air. The sun was setting.” (40). By inserting juxtaposition in the form of the word beautiful when the Jews are transferring from Birkenau to Auschwitz into the portion of the memoir in which the Jews’ fates are turning evermore darker, Wiesel portrays to the reader his internal longing to get away from his current situation, being transferred from one camp to another, and consequently allows the reader to escape, momentarily, with him. By using juxtaposition in the first five chapters, Wiesel gives the reader a temporary break from the suffering and anguish that he has experienced.
In comparison to the first five chapters, the next few that follow include juxtaposition that create the same effect of lightening the mood during intense portions of Wiesel’s memoir. For example, after the long march, Rabbi Eliahu comes by the Jews searching for his son who, as Wiesel remembers it, runs further ahead after seeing his father losing ground. This particular scene is juxtaposed by Wiesel’s relationship with his father which, no matter what happens, exists until Shlomo’s death. Another example of juxtaposition occurs when hundreds of people are dying of the cold and Juliek is playing his violin. Wiesel stated “Never before had I heard such a beautiful sound….All I could hear was the violin, and it was as if Juliek’s soul had become his bow. He was playing his life.” (95). This scene is juxtaposed by the hundreds of people dying while, before his own demise, Juliek plays his life on the violin. This use of juxtaposition gives the reader a break from the mental image of thousands of corpses piled up on top of each other and focuses on the beauty of Juliek’s final performance. Because of Wiesel’s use of juxtaposition, the same effect portrayed in the first five chapters is displayed here as well, in the few that follow them.
Wiesel’s choice of mental and physical effacing diction and juxtaposition seem to enhance the reading of his dejected memoir in their own contradictory way: diction making the words more powerful, and juxtaposition giving the reader an almost comical temporary break from said powerful words. Using such contradicting devices provides the reader with a unique experience that emotionally affects the reader in the same way as a roller coaster ride.