Pick one of the following topics to discuss. Remember to limit your response to 10 sentences, max.
Writing style: Wiesel’s writing style has been called “controlled”, “concise”, and “direct.”
1. Why do you think he writes this way?
2. How does his writing style relate to the following quotation from the preface: "And so I persevered. And trusted the silence that envelops and transcends words" (x)?
3. Select a short sentence from p. 2-46 of Night and discuss how the controlled writing style affects you as a reader and your understanding of the scene.
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Elie Wiesel experienced tramau as a boy during the Holacaust and this affects his writing. Wiesel has very concise and direct writing because he wants to get his message across. He does not want to spend time elaborating on what happens; he wants to tell the reader exactly how horrible this event was to him and others. Wiesel's quote shows that he tells the reader exactly what happened, but the reader is then forced to make her own opinion about it, and consequently the blanks that he asks the reader to fill, truly show how terrible this event was.
"The morning star shone in the sky. I too had become a different person." (37)
This shows Weisel's writing is concise and direct because he tells the reader that he has changed, he does not ask the reader to make any conclusions only tells the reader exactly what is happening.
"We never saw him again. He had been given the news.The real news." (45) Elie uses a controlled writing technique in this short passage. This makes the passage even more haunting because of the way it is written without suggested anger or sadness. It is written in a both direct manner without showing any emotion. I think Elie wrote this way because he wants to make this statement both clear and easy to understand but to also show that this sort of incidents(learning that your family is gone) were apart of many people's experience during the Holocaust. The fact that learning that your family is dead was quite common makes for a very emotional reader even when the statement isn't in fact written with much emotion itself .
"Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky." (34) That sentence not only shows the sick though seemingly nonchalant intensity of the concentration camps. It is amazing that a sentence such as that can be put into words and expressed on a page. My favorite description in this sentence is the "silent sky." Millions of Jews were being hopelessly killed, and some, like Weisel, lost their faith, because it seemed to them that God was not answering their prayers, and the world around them lived in silent, hidden awareness protected by their beliefs. Through this sentence, I was able to further understand the scene itself and some of the thoughts that were racing through the inmate's heads. The Jews felt isolated and probably helpless, for, trapped between thick barbed wire, there was no one coming to their rescue. Hope was the only option, and Weisel's direct writing makes that clear.
Throughout his novel, Night, Elie Weisel uses controlled writing to show his amazed, terrified, and numbed emotions throughout this terrible event. "We realized that we were not staying in Hungary. Our eyes opened. Too late" (page 23). During many moment such as this in the novel, Weisel uses short and abbreviated sentences, only giving as much information as is necessary. Although saying as little as possible, his small sentences explain the intensity of his situation. With his "less is more" writing technique, the reader is left with a lingering feeling of fear for what will come for Weisel, his family, and the rest of the Jews. Although many have heard of the Holocaust, the unreal truths that Weisel reveals to the readers for the first time hit the reader hard in the way they are presented; nothing but the cold, hard facts.
Wiesel's concise writing technique sets a fearfully, real setting where observation is separated from reflection. His writing is similar to the cold, hard truth he is depicting. He does not delay to get straight to the facts no matter how gruesome, because he feels people need to experience the massacre how he and many other Jews did to understand the suffering they endured. By writing in a controlled manner, his goal is to further help people comprehend the inhumane actions, respect the suffering and loss included, and prevent history from repeating itself. His writing is haunting and by solely recording his observations throughout the World War he leaves the readers' minds open to possibilities and interpretations. It creates foreshadowing and suspense, although the dramatic irony is that we already know of Elie Wiesel's and many other Jews' fates. "First impression: better than Birkenau" (Page 41). His truthful yet abrupt words give the reader hope, just as his first impression of the new concentration camp had given him hope. But as quickly as faith is regained Wiesel snatches it away, just as children were commandeered from their mothers, dignity from the men, religious freedom from the Jews, hope from all, and lives from millions.
When Elie Wiesel said, "And so I persevered. And trusted the silence that envelops and transcends words" (x), he related to the style in which he narrated his tragic story–concise and direct. It takes a huge amount of courage to relive and recognize a macabre past, yet Wiesel proved that it is not possible. He was able to look back to the sordid memories that occured in his life, those that would always remain in his mind. The silence in his mind while he tried to recall his past formed a story that explained his experience. The story was not superfluous with detail, and it skipped through time that did not matter. Wiesel's primary goal was to communicate a horrifying experience that many people had faced to the world, and to prevent such a thing from happening again. It was obviously very hard to come up with words to explain such a story; a story that has much more meaning that a word could express. It was not necessary to include every piece of detail, nor would it be easy to remember. However, Wiesel conjured up all the courage he could and was able to convey his past in a way that would directly and effectively explain the tragedy that millions of Jews faced in the Holocaust.
One of the truly painfully concise yet emotionally overflowing sentences in this section of Night is on page 35, "The son of an important merchant of my town had arrived in Birkenau with the first transport, one week ahead of us... He told us that having been chosen because of his strength, he had been forced to place his own father's body into the furnace." This selection neither describes nor shows any emotional reactions to the event which it describes. From this sentence, it seems as if Wiesel has no response to the tragic deed imposed upon this boy he knew by the German Kommando. But looking into the sentence, Wiesel's writing is crammed full of sadness and sorrow. He is a master of the "show not tell" concept—instead of saying "He was full of sorrow because he had to kill his own father," Wiesel simply describes the occurence. His cold style of writing haunts each of his sentences; there is little left for the reader to fill in. By this I mean that Elie Wiesel just states the facts. After reading a sentence such as this, even in its succintness, the reader immediately feels the pain in his simple words—the pain that he too felt when experiencing the Holocaust: when both actually going through it himself and listening to the stories of others. It is as if less is more; Elie Wiesel's short and condensed thoughts convey the immense gravity and severity of tragic incidents.
The "concise" and "direct" writing style of Elie Wiesel tells the reader the exact events of his experience, while also leaving them wondering and imagining. An example of this style of writing is, "The three 'veteran' prisoners, needles in hand, tattooed numbers on our left arms. I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name" (42). Wiesel writes that one moment in time just as it happened, which helps me clearly understand the scene. However, my understanding of it still doesn't keep me from wondering what it was like to just be known as a number, without a name or identity. It seems to me that the Germans didn't care about the Jews at all. To them, they were all one people, not individuals with separate identities and characteristics; just Jews. We are all known by our name today and it individualizes us from the rest of the world. I couldn't imagine what it would have been like to be in Elie's spot, being known as "A-7713." Wiesel's "direct" writing lets my mind wander and imagine, while still being able to understand the meaning behind his writing.
Considering it took Elie Wiesel ten years to recover from his hardships, before he could write Night, it must have been very difficult for him to write this memoir. Hence, one could only imagine how tough it was for Wiesel to go into great details about such a tragic and real topic. However, since he does have these ten years of recovery to support him; he understands how he must inform people about the cruelties that went on not too long ago. Wiesel wants the readers to be notified about the malicious behavior so it will never happen again. Therefore, he cuts straight to the points and avoids tangents to tell the reader how it actually was. It also must be very painful and hard for Wiesel to think about all of the gruesome memories, so he probably wanted to stay on topic and avoid further sensitivities. By reading Night, it makes one feel so badly, sad, and moved by these merciless actions that occurred during the Holocaust. Thus, Wiesel’s technique of “controlled” and “concise” writing allows the reader to stay interested in the book; but recognize that nothing like these events should ever happen again.
Elie Wiesel was deeply scathed and traumatized during his stay at the concentration camps. Therefore, he chooses to use very straight forward and direct language when writing his tragic story. I think that he does this because he wants to give his readers a very real sense of the horrifying things that he experienced instead of straying from the point by using descriptive and elaborate words. "A truck drew close and unloaded its hold: small children. Babies! Yes, I did see this, with my own eyes...children thrown into flames." (pg.32) This sentence is extremely straight-forward and haunting. I believe that Elie purposely wrote his sentences very concisely because he wanted everyone to understand the inhumane and violent acts that the Jews were forced to be a victim of.
The reason for Eli Wiesel's concise and to the point writing is stated clearly in the preface. "Moral obligation to try to prevent the enemy from enjoying one last victory." (viii) The whole essence of Night is to tell the terrible tale of the Holocaust. Wiesel does not want to entertain people with this book; he wants to educate them. The writing needs to be clear and succinct for everyone to understand the message and not to miss a detail. If Wiesel had written this book with lengthier and wordier sentences the book wouldn't have as much meaning and seem more like a fictional book instead of an account of real events. And although the writing can sometimes be a little harsh, if it was not for the straightforward writing the book would not be nearly as poignant.
Wiesel writes his novel in a way that uses as few words as possible, but with clear and comprehensive information, as to try and get readers to simply understand that the events that Wiesel wrote about, as inhumane as they may sound, were true. He wants readers not to read over his words and take them for granted, but wants us to see the full meaning of some words, and transcend the words to view their full meaning. He says in the preface how some words such as hunger, fear, transport and chimney may have an everyday use, but when used in Night's context, take on a completely different meaning. As people of an upper-class society, we often take for granted phrases such as, to be 'starving', when none of use have actually even come close to actually having hunger grip at your stomach as badly as people in Wiesel's position during the Holocaust. Wiesel writes Night in a way that makes us as readers think about the context of words, and to go beyond our limits of imagination to view the fear that targets during the Holocaust faced.
Ellie Wiesel's writing does include much controlled, concise, and direct, language. "We never saw him again. He had been given the news. The real news" (45). Quotes such as the one above reflect Wiesel's consise writing. Without having to explain exactly what had happened to the man or showing the scene of him going to find his family and having been told that they were dead, Wiesel clearly got the message across with the few, short sentences he provides. In a way it is much better like this. It is much more interesting to read because it is as if the lack of explanation gives it more meaning and impact, and makes it much more haunting. Because of his concise writing, no more explanation is needed. It is easy for the reader to understand exacty what he meant; Elie lied to the man, and so when he found out what actually happened to his family, he could not bear to hold on anymore.
Throughout the book, Night, Elie Weisel uses concise, controlled and direct writing. I think that Weisel wrote his book this way because it shows the realness of what happened to him and many other Jews at the time without making it unbelievable. Weisel sets the story up so the reader is able to understand what happened and imagine what happened without making the story totally unbearable to read. He lets the reader be able to read the text and imagine what comes from reading that text. Weisels writing is straightforward and gets the point across. Through his writing Weisel is able to show and let the readers imagine what happened to him while still using his concise and direct writing style.
Why does Eli Wiesel write so concisely? Well, I think, there is no other way to tell a story such as his. There is no way to beat around the bush, to avoid or hesitate, or to jumble meaningless words with reality when transcending such a travesty to a reader. The simplest way to make the reader understand the gravity of the situation is to write concisely. When Eli Wiesel says goodbye to his mother and sisters, he tells us strait out that, “I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever” (29), and when he sees the babies burning in the fires of the crematorium he exclaims to us fervently, “Babies! Yes, I did see this…children thrown into the flames” (32). This story cannot be unclear or watered, because the truth is too powerful. It deserves to be written concisely. Can we ever really say we relate to his tragic ordeal? Never. However, by writing with such strength…such force and intensity, Eli Wiesel causes the world to understand his testimony and ultimately, message.
Wiesel writes in a "controlled", "concise", and "direct" matter in an attempt to correctly represent life at the concentration camps. As Wiesel says, "silence" does a lot of the speaking in the novel, and writing long, loopy sentences would only take away from the starkness and almost simplicity of the writing. Wiesel states things directly as they were; he does not disguise even some of the most difficult times with unnecessary vocabulary that masks the severity and depression of the time. In a sense, Wiesel's writing reflects the conditions of the camp, no unnecessary luxuries, very controlled, and nothing is done without reason. With Wiesel's controlled, concise, and direct writing style, every single word in the novel has a greater importance, as missing one word can alter an entire paragraph. When writing about his experiences, Wiesel undoubtedly wanted to say things as they were, and therefore does not mess around with his vocabulary and writing styles.
Elie Wiesel writes in a controlled and concise style, not only in order to portray effectively and accurately his story, but also, perhaps, to make his book more palatable to his audience. The Holocaust was an extremely painful event - both for those who experienced its atrocities directly, and for their descendants who still feel its repercussions today. The unfathomable inhumanity that characterized the Holocaust's realities remains a daily reminder of man's apparently limitless capacity for guiltless destruction. If Wiesel were to release more of his personal sentiments into his writings, it would make his testimony less accessible to the masses. For those who did not share his experience personally, the intensity of his raw feelings might be alienating. "Night's" purpose was to spread the horrific story of the Holocaust, in order to prevent its repetition. Wiesel's mission could never be accomplished if the contemporary reader were unable to relate to his testimony. Furthermore, writing "Night" was undoubtedly overwhelmingly emotional for Wiesel. If he were to allow his emotions to take control, his purpose would not only be compromised, but possibly unattainable. Wiesel controls his literary emotiveness in order to accomplish his goal.
I believe that Wiesel writes "Controlled", "concise", and "direct", to get right to the point and have no unecessary writing to stop the reader from reading. I think he wants the reader to understand the story and feel like he/she is really expirencing it, to a limit that it is still entertaining. He doesn't want the reader to be bored of the unecessary describtions, but to be engrossed in the story.
I think that Elie Weisel's writes in a manner that can be called "concise" or "direct" because it only needs to be that to convey the emotions, danger, strong feelings, pain and agony he felt durring his time in concentration camps. Night is an exceedingly emotional story. However Eli Wiesel does not explain emotions too much throughout the book. For example he will say, (34) "I squeezedmy father's hand." But, he will not tell why he did that. However the emotion is conveyed and we know why he had cling to his father.
"The world had become a hermetically sealed cattle car"(pg.24). This sentence was particually haunting to me. It is saying that for the few days they were in that car, that was their world. He was saying that there was no other hope for the Jews in that cattle car, that there was no out. He says the world had become the car, which translates to, the world was inside the car, the world was this horrible thing happening to the Jewish people, and nothing else. When he says it is a sealed cattle car, he is saying that no matter how hard a person tries to escape the horrible things that are happening to them, they cannot.
The horrendous experiences that Elie Wiesel endured can only be written with few and simple words that send his message across clearly. Throughout this memoir, Wiesel has been clear and straightforward in his writing. He does not try to "sugar coat" things. He just writes the novel exactly how it is in his memory, which makes it so powerful. He recalls upon his horrid experiences exactly how they were, which causes the reader to feel like they were there. A particular example of his writing that revealed the cruelty of his experiences was when he said, "The heat, the thirst, the lack of air, were suffocating us." (26). In this short, simple sentence, Elie Wiesel manages to capture the reader and show them exactly how miserable it was on the cattle car. He uses a direct way of telling us about the poor conditions.
“We never saw him again. He had been given the news. The real news. (pg.45) Elie Wiesel uses this concise and direct writing style to express the pain and intensity of news given; the news of knowing that your whole family is dead. The icy and controlled words gives the reader a better understanding of the reality of the situation and affects the reader by leaving them with a sense of the sorrow and grief and the sharp intensity stabs the reader with a lasting mark.
Wiesel's writing simple and direct writing style is the reason for this famed and authentic writing. Wiesel experienced a great amount of horrific events that affected his innocence as a young boy. This one night changed his life, and no large elaborate metaphor would make it sound as bad as Wiesel saw it. Instead he choses to describe the ending of his childhood by stating the facts. "Through the windows, we saw barbed wire; we understood that this was the camp" (pg.28). He saw barbed wire, imprisonment and death, along with others. Even though the shock and uncomfortable mood isn't written out; the affect lingers in between the lines. Wiesel himself commented that he "persevered. And trusted the silence that envelops and transcends words" (x). The silence between each word isn't guessed by the reader; but instead, it is provided, plain and raw, the facts.
Elie Wiesel's direct writing style allows us to better view the picture he has drawn of the Holocaust. With concise actions and clear images we as readers can visualize, though the Holocaust is beyond comprehension, how Wiesel endured. We don't need Wiesel to explain what he felt at moments because his use of clear language says enough. "Eight words, indifferent... There was no time to think... I didn't know that this was the moment in time and hte place where I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever." (29) These few words alone describe the fear the German Army inspired, that without portraying any emotion, simply carrying out an order, a family had been separated forever.
"I too had become a different person. The student of Talmud, the child I was, had been comsumed by the flames" (37). Though the scenes painted show formidable suffering, Wiesel never shows all hope lost until now. In a few sentences his innocence has been taken away with the reoccurring image of fire.
It comes to the conclusion where the concentration camp has broken him. His morals built on hope and god both have been questioned and perturbed by the idea of your humanity being burnt. His concise conclusion is a haunting feeling because the forlorn hope shielding him from the tragedy is almost snatched from the reader as well.
Elie Weisel writes in a concise, direct manner because he has went through so much suffering, and needs readers to understand how Jews were treated. The way he writes has no misunderstandings, and makes us fully grasp the meaning of his words. He provides not much detail because of he does not want to replay the painful occurrences in his past. Because he will always remember the shocking sights, he does not want to provide enough detail to make him go through misery; but makes them concise and to the point. As well, his emotions are felt deeply throughout his writing. Because the devastating feelings comes through, the readers do not need every detail, but are overwhelmed. One feels like they are really at the scene of the concentration camps. Even though it is hard to read about such times, Elie Wiesel does a great job in making people take in the air of the traumatic past.
Elie Wiesel writes his novel with haunting words and sentences leaving the reader cold, yet wanting more. Wiesel uses punctuation to emphasize his sentences and the meaning behind them. The reason Wiesel writes with such conviction and harshness is to inspire the imagination of the reader, to think about the conditions of the prisoners. He wants the reader to understand the way they were treated and uses interesting writing techniques to do so. Wiesel uses short phrases and sentences and very little words which causes a haunting feeling while reading this novel. Wiesel;s writing is very short, yet in the few words her uses it gets straight to the point and includes very much information. The special technique of writing the Wiesel uses makes the novel sharp, this sharpness creates apprehensive, haunting moments and is a very beneficial factor of the novel.
Wiesel writes his novel in a way that uses as few words as possible, but with clear and comprehensive information, as to try and get readers to simply understand that the events that Wiesel wrote about, as inhumane as they may sound, were true. He wants readers not to read over his words and take them for granted, but wants us to see the full meaning of some words, and transcend the words to view their full meaning. He says in the preface how some words such as hunger, fear, transport and chimney may have an everyday use, but when used in Night's context, take on a completely different meaning. As people of an upper-class society, we often take for granted phrases such as, to be 'starving', when none of use have actually even come close to actually having hunger grip at your stomach as badly as people in Wiesel's position during the Holocaust. Wiesel writes Night in a way that makes us as readers think about the context of words, and to go beyond our limits of imagination to view the fear that targets during the Holocaust faced.
" 'A transport just arrived from Antwerp... Surely they will have news...' He left. We never saw him again. He had been given the news. The real news." (45)
Elie Wiesel's controlled writing style increases the impact and intensity of his words. When reading a passage such as the one above, the reader's emotions come to the surface. Such a quote has the ability to make a reader sad, angry, and feel very sorry for Stein. The way he writes reaches out to human emotions and feelings, which makes his point clearer than it may have been otherwise.
"And so I persevered. And trusted the silence that envelops and transcends words." By writing this in the preface, Wiesel prepares his audience for short, controlled writing. Wiesel has so much to say on this topic - he could go on forever. By keeping his writing technique short and clear, he cuts down to the point. Not only does he reach his point he is making faster, but Wiesel also uses the sparsity of make each word mean more. By adding less words, the value of each has increased drastically. In less words, Wiesel has created a more life-like, understandable world than had he over done his writing. Not only did it make his book sound better and more life like with fewer words, but Wiesel himself says in the preface, "But how was one to rehabilitate and transform words betrayed and perverted by the enemy?" No amount of words can ever truly describe what happened to the Jews in Auschwitz, but Wiesel truly tries to find the ones that best fit. How could he have put many words, when to him they meant nothing? How can these words truly mean anything to the reader, such as "hunger", if the reader has never truly been hungry before? Wiesel does a good job at bringing the reader back to where he was in time, but he himself knows that words alone simply are not enough. Keeping his choice of words short and simple, clear, clean, and concise, Wiesel does the best he can to illustrate what it was like to be at a death camp in the Holocaust.
Elie Wisel’s clear, concise, writing form helps the readers get the full story of the tragedies of the Holocaust, and not just a softened version. Wiesel’s purpose for writing Night is to “prevent the enemy from enjoying one last victory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human memory,” (viii). In order for the Holocaust to never be forgotten, everyone must know about it. To deny that the Holocaust ever happened would be an extreme danger to the human race. To diminish any of the facts of this massacre would be dangerous as well. As a survivor, Wiesel has a moral obligation to share every single truth regarding the Holocaust. Any softened facts or moderate stories could be potentially dangerous. Though Wiesel’s clear, concise writing form may sometimes seem overly-brutal, it is absolutely necessary in order for the readers to fully understand the tragedies of the Holocaust.
The short and concise writing of Elie Wiesel enhances the imagery and messages that he is trying to portray. He avoids embellishment and exaggeration in order to tell his inform people about the horrors of the Holocaust in the best way he can. Each word becomes more meaningful and significant to the story, like each word has been etched onto his soul forever. Wiesel's quote shows how he believes that even short, small words can hold power. And his writing, too, is both concise and powerful: "Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never" (34). This quote shows his thoughts can discuss his emotions, feelings, thoughts about religion, and state of mind in a short sentence, which was strengthened by a single word put in its own paragraph. It evokes emotion from the reader while getting straight to the point.
Elie Wiesel uses fewer words to increase the plot drastically and to help us envision ourselves in his shoes. Wiesel wants the reality to set in quickly and clearly because when he was experiencing this it did happen fast and abrupt with no questions asked. Wiesel tries to use less, yet harsh, words to help us understand what happened to the Jews in Auschwitz. He tries to bring the reader back to where he was in time is tough so he simply uses short, concise, and harsh words to help us portray the feeling as if we were literally experiencing lly it.
I think that Elie Wiesel continues to write in a concise way because the experiences and pain that he has been through is already confusing and inscrutable to explain or interperate to himself, that it must be even harder for the reader to understand. He wants to make his thoughts and feelings relatable to other people so that they could try to imagine what he and the other Jews went through. Everything Wiesel writes is clear and gets to the point. He does not ramble and I think that is one reason that his writiting is so amazing and easy to understand. Everything that happens to Wiesel must have had a huge affect on him and he tries to explain all his feelings into a few shorts words or sentences.
I think Elie Wiesel writes in short, concise writing for a few reasons. Firstly, since Wiesel was part of a very traumatic and gruesome experience during the Holocaust, one can imagine it is very difficult and hurtful to bring back those haunting memories. Although, Wiesel knows it is a necessity to tell people his story, he just needs to figure out a way to say it. It is already hard enough to bring back memories like those, but to go deep into detail is even more painful. Secondly, keeping his sentences short and concise make each word carry a heavier meaning, a more powerful one. It makes the reader understand that there are no more words to explain the torture and suffering he and thousands of others took place in, for the human mind can not imagine something so terrible. Lastly, Weisel wants the story to sink into the reader. He wants it to hit them and stick with them forever, enhancing the meaning of the amazing, yet horrifying story.
Throughout the book "Night" Elie Wiesel writes in a style that is very clear and concise, without the addition of unecessary words or description. I think he uses this style to better portray the feeling of bare hopelessness felt by the Jews in Wiesel's situation. Long descriptions or interesting anecdotes along with his story would make the book stray away from the truth, therefore, Wiesel's writing style portrays the true story without hiding it in more elaborate writing.
Traumatized by all of his experiences during the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel does not want to let his emotions loose. Wiesel writes compact sentences and uses simple language. He wants to have it written down for history, and not go into full detail with the stories. There are not words to describe the pain experienced in the camps. Even with the simple language, the story tells itself. We are unable to wrap our minds around what is told in the stories, and with simple language it is easier to understand.
Wiesel's writing style is called "concise", "controlled", and "direct" because this technique aids him in illustrating the stark reality of the Jews. There are no embellishments or added details in the author's words - the writing is none other real, harsh truth. This actuality is shown by Wiesel's conciseness in his writing. The author gets the message across by explaining exactly what happens giving accurate information. Without deeply explaining the emotions in words, it is the reader's task to comprehend the suffering and feelings of Elie and the rest of the Jewish community.
"The iron gates closed us" is a sentence that really stuck out to me. (p46) The reason it leaves such an impression is the simplicity of it. Wiesel doesn't try and add fancy vocab or make the sentence more intelligent. To me, the controlled writing style makes it all more real for me because if we had actually been at the camp, they would have been talking in simple sentences because they had very little energy. I thought the sentence not only meant that they were now locked into the camp but that the last pieces of hope and what life was like just weeks ago, is slowly being lost behind them
Eli Wiesel captivates his reader by asking elementary questions that require great thought. "How could it be possible for them to burn people, children, and for the world to keep silent?" (32) Because there is no straightforward answer to many questions, providing a response would not be a powerful tactic. Instead, Wiesel leaves the question unanswered in order to process it more thoroughly.
"The heat, the thirst, the stench, the lack of air, were suffocating us."(26) Stuffed into one cart with 80 people is easy to picture in one's mind. Wiesel uses direct characteristics from the inside of the cart allowing the reader to experience the vivid picture. All four descriptions: heat, thirst, stench, and lack of air can be related to, yet most of the time not together. When imagining all four at once, it becomes easy to know exactly how these people felt.
Elie Wiesel went through a lot as a Jewish boy during and experienced many traumatic incidents. While he wrote Night, he knew that he would have to think about all that had happened and re-digest the terrible things he experienced. Wiesel probably uses a concise and direct writing style not only to get to the point, but also to soften the blow of reliving or retelling the happenings of the Holocaust. I can imagine how hard it must be to think about all the horrible things that Wiesel has witnessed during his time at concentration camps. By not using long, complicated sentences, Wiesel spares himself the torture of going through his younger years again.
Elie Wiesel writes directly and concisely because it allows the story to get right to the point. Although he uses few words, those words are meaningful; the fewer words he uses, the more valuable and significant the sentence is. By writing controllably, Wiesel leaves behind haunting images for us to imagine ourselves and he allows us to fully reflect on what he's written. His sentences express the intensity of his experience without stuffing them full of words. He tells the reader what's happening exactly and to the point, as if to emphasize the importance of each moment in his story.
Throughout the book "Night", Elie Wiesel writes in a "controlled", "concise", and "direct" manner. I believe Wiesel writes in this manner because getting directly to the point help illustrate the harshness and reality of what was really going on. I feel that if Wiesel were to drag the story on by writing on and on and on it takes the meaning out of the words. By only choosing the most important word, Wiesel is able to make the story more intense and real. Wiesel's writing is so real and deep, when reading the story, you feel as if you are actually there and experiencing his life story. If Wiesel were to drag on the story, the reality in the story would be lost in all the words. Clear and concise writing is always more interesting because the reader is able to experience the emotions the words bring to mind and then quickly come back to the story. This technique is very effective, especially in the case of Elie Wiesel's life story of Night.
I think that Elie Weisel writes in a 'controlled', 'concise', and 'direct' way because it makes everything more to the point. He says what he needs to say without using too many words while he gets his point across completely. This way of writing also makes the story more intense and suspenseful. If Wiesel's writing was much longer with more explanations, the power of his story would be lost. He would be telling instead of showing. In "Night", Wiesel writes just enough for the reader to understand what is going on and what his feelings are towards the certain event, but it keeps the reader interested and curious. His writing is almost 'vignette writing'. He has some sentences containing just one word, but this adds to the intensity and shows the reader exactly what he was feeling at that very moment in time.
"I had watched and kept slient." (39) Wiesel is talking about watching his father get slapped in the face after politely asking a Gypsy inmate where the bathrooms were. It seems as if the events during what we now call the Holocaust brought everyone into complete silence. There is no more speaking out for what you think is right or even standing up for someone in trouble. Weisel's writing style allows the reader to be able to think for themselves. To decode the true message and meaning hidden underneath the words. If Weisel were to use more adjectives and really explain his thoughts and feelings the reader is allowed to have a better visual. On the other hand, the writing becomes to clear and there is no room for analysis or imagination. Weisel's writing makes his story clear yet dramatic.
Elie Wiesel constantly exhibits his truly practiced and expert style of writing in his novel. For Wiesel’s Night, is set on a quick pace and often small events are told in a very direct, yet hushed way. “Behind me, an old man fell to the ground. Nearby, an SS man replaced his revolver in its holster.” This quotation is a major example of Wiesel’s concise approach of- not ‘telling’ his story, but ‘showing’ his story.’ He omits any possible sentences of his inevitable sight of the shot man, yet still effectively evokes the image in the reader’s mind. By omitting some of the violent images that are no doubt stamped into the underside of his eyelids, his careful choice of words cruelly, yet brilliantly illustrate his “slim volume of [truly] terrifying power.”
*Quote from The New York Times Review
Wiesel uses concise and direct words to get his point out. By using these words, the point is given directly, without any extra information. Wiesel's goal is to have the reader understand what he went through. He does not want to write so much to do so. He also leaves some room for interpretation by the readers. Wiesel does not spend time on insignificant details. This makes the novel even more moving, because the reader gets a full understanding of how horrible the situation for the Jewish people in these concentration camps really was. By adding more details, it would take away from the main story, which is one of amazing survival. Without the use of "concise" and "direct" words, Wiesel is able to portray his story in a very intense and moving way.
Elie Wiesel’s writing style comes from the passion of what he is writing about. Wiesel had a first hand experience of the holocaust and he has chosen to share his story. While writing he shows very concise technique because he does not want you to question what he is saying. Many detail of the Holocaust are so horrible that you cannot do much but question them. "The three 'veteran' prisoners, needles in hand, tattooed numbers on our left arms. I became A-7713. From then on, I had no other name" (42). They way Elie says “I had no other name” shows the reader that they were no more than a number to the SS. Their lives were expendable and were though to have no purpose but to serve.
I think that Elie Weisel writes this way to make his writing even more meaningful and more powerful. With such few words Elie is able to describe and explain the horrendous acts and things that he witnessed and or experienced. As a reader, you hang to each word that Elie says, waiting to hear what he has to say next. His writing is cold and stiff and yet it flows as one beautiful, powerful piece of literature.
on page seventeen Wiesel writes, "there was a little of everything: suitcases, briefcases, bags, knives, dishes, banknotes, papers, faded protraits. All the things one planned to take along finally left behind. They had ceased to matter." (17) This is similar, and maybe the cause of, Wiesel's writing style. He too writes only the necessary facts, just enough to get his point across, without adding superfluous detail. Because of his sparse sentence, the value of each word increases. His writing itself describes the effect of his experience. He learned to separate the necessary, from the frivolous, the useful, from the weak. His sparse and almost uninviting writing is appropriate for the topic because that was his world. He lived with less than the bare minimum, and because he writes the same way his words and sentences take on new meaning. Also, the shortness and sharpness of sentences emphasize the fact that the unembellished fact alone is prodigious and significant enough to stand as its own sentence.
Elie uses this kind of writing to tell his story because it allows him to show the harshness and reality that he faced. By not "padding" his story, the reader understands the things he faced in their true form, not something watered down. This type of writing shows the reader what really happened, not what the writer thinks happened, or what the writer wished happened. With this type of writing, we know that what Elie is telling is the pure and simple truth.
Elie Wiesel writes Night using a “concise” and “controlled” writing style in order to contrast the simplicity of his writing to the depth of his horrific experiences, and to give an accurate testimony of history. In Jane Eyre, Jane’s teacher offers her a valuable piece of advice “Say whatever your memory suggests as true; but add nothing and exaggerate nothing (page 71).” The simple and direct truth allows the story to have more impact, and the intense horror of the Holocaust lies in the unexaggerated facts. “I didn’t know that this was the moment in time and the place where I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever (page 29).” With that single sentence, Wiesel conveys none of his emotions, but simply depicts the separation of families forever during the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel’s unfathomable experiences lie in the brutal reality of the Holocaust, had he allowed his emotions into his style of writing, it would have veered away from his primary goal – to relay history from a first hand account, to current and future generations. Through Wiesel’s writing, the reader becomes mindful that small prejudices can evolve into uncontrollable human tragedies. Wiesel’s style of writing is poignant, with a sharp, severe impact on the reader that makes the reader step back and reflect on the atrocities that human beings can inflict on each other.
"It was as though madness had infected all of us. We gave up. A few young men forced her to sit down, then bound and gagged her... Her son was clinging to her, not uttering a word."(26) The theme of indifference applies to how her son sat lifeless, not speaking up to help his mother in any way as they hit her. Nobody else, including Elie, who knew Mrs. Schachter personally would come to her aid because she was disturbing their sleep and awakening the fear that they all were trying to suppress. The fear of the future, torture, and death. They payed no attention to what was going on that second, and how Mrs. Schatcher's son was witnessing his mother being beaten because she was screaming about seeing fire. They had given up on fighting the fear and reality.
Elie Wielsel uses a controlled writing technique in most of his passages. One inparticular was "The weak don't last very long around here..." This sentence gives us the right amount of information, but leaved us wanted to hear more. When Wielsel uses this technigue it gets us thinking. We think about what is going to happen to a character if they are weak or what they do to a character if they are weak. The way he writes it makes our emotions wander and believe many different things. It helps us connect to the author and be in his shoes. Writing the way he does really shows us how terrible being in the situation was and thinking about what will happen to you in this terrible event.
I think that Elie Wiesel uses very concise and incisive phrases and sentences throughout the book because he wants to get to the point. He knows its best just to get the message across, this way he can keep the reader entertained and edjucated at the same time. He also writes more concise sentences because it's too painful for him to go back into deep description of every little detail. Wiesel just wants to keep the readers aware of what happened and so that's exactly what he does.
I think that the reason Elie Wiesel writes in such a manner is his own personal way of emphasizing the importance of what he is saying. By not including flowery language Wiesel is making the reader think of the book as more of a work of history than a book to read for pleasure. Wiesel is not telling a bedtime story to a child, he is telling his own terrible story that we may all know and remember the suffering of the Jewish people during the Holocaust. Another reason i think that Wiesel may choose to emit any of his own personal emotion or narration is to allow the reader to make their own conclusions about his words.
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