Devin Bischler

Ms. Albrecht
Advanced Composition
4/24/15
Speaking the Truth

At first there were just whispers. Deportation. Nobody wanted to believe it. The things
they had heard about jews being slaughtered without mercy by the gestapo couldnt be true.
Jewish prisoners forced to dig their own graves. Babies thrown into the air for machine gunners
to use as target practice. Even though Elie and his family had been hearing these stories for
months, nobody believed them. Hitler wont possibly be able to do any harm. The words of Elie,
15 years old at the time, show how the jews felt about the rumors. Yes, we even doubted that he
wanted to exterminate us. Was he going to wipe out a whole people...What methods would he
use? And in the middle of the twentieth century! (Wiesel 18). Sadly, they would soon realize
that just ignoring the ugly truth was only to bring a permanent darkness over their lives.
Elie Wiesel was born in 1928. Prior to being herded like animals into one of the most
infamous death camps of the holocaust, Elie was leading a relatively normal life. He studied the
cabbala, spending long hours studying the revelations and mysterious that it contained. His
family life was also like any other. His father, Shlomo, was a businessman and a highly respected
member of the jewish community. People would often come to Elies family when they had any
questions or where in need of anything. For a time things stayed normal in Sighet, the small
Transylvanian town that they called home. Then one fateful day all foreign Jews had been
expelled from Sighet. Moche the Beadle, who had been serving as young Elies guide in the
studies of the Cabbala, was a foreigner.

He was gone for months. He had been nearly forgotten. One day, however, Moche the
beadle returned and would tell of the horrors he saw. But only would Elie believe him after he
had experienced the torment and horrors himself.
Wiesel would go on and tell his tragic story too. However, he would wait ten years to
write down his experience and tell the world. This ten year vow of silence was due to the fear of
his past. This fear of the past would go on to be a key theme in many of his books. In the final
book, The Accident, Wiesel writes about how hard it can be for a holocaust survivor to make a
new life after experiencing such terrible things. The past is always an important theme in
Wiesels books. According to William Faulkner of Yeomanfarmerrambling.com, The past is
never dead. It is always present. This proves to be the basis of his books. Wiesel writes of the
past as if it is a blight on the present. It seems to be a constant throughout his literary works that
in order for a Holocaust survivor to make a new life they must try to completely destroy his past.
Wiesels book night follows suit with his other books in many ways. This includes similar
style, tone, and themes. These literary elements give his books a distinct character. With the book
Night, Elie Wiesel is forced to do one of the hardest things a writer ever has had to do: put the
worst human experiences into words. When people often think of the Holocaust, they just cant
think of the proper words to describe it. This difficulty in writing the story really helps to explain
the style. It is very sparse. By sparse I mean very choppy and straightforward, cutting out the
unneeded details and going straight to the point. I think shmoop.com describes this best when
they say You wont be getting lost in elaborate contructions or fancy metaphors. The horrors that
Eliezer witnesses are instead told at an angle. Elie pretty much tries to take himself out of the
situation. That is why I believe he takes out so much detail and just sticks with the bare bones of
it. If you were told to write about your most horrible past experiences, it probably wouldn't be

very easy to do. This is because when you write about the experience you put yourself back in
that place, you feel the emotions running through your veins as if you are right there once more.
A line on page 65 shows exactly what this means Lie down on your stomach! I obeyed. Then I
was aware of nothing but the strokes of a whip. (Wiesel). It is obvious what has just happened
to him. He has been whipped. But he doesnt just say that. He removes himself from the story
and tries to forget the violence. Thus, the reason Wiesel writes the way he does. It is to destroy
his past and to try to forget the unimaginable things he went through.
Even though Wiesel leaves out a lot of details from the story, it is still extremely personal.
A paragraph on page 106 really paints the pictureMeir, Meir, my boy! Dont you recognize
me? Im your father...youre hurting me...youre killing your father! Ive got some bread...for
you too...for you too (Wiesel 106). Here Wiesel describes the murder of a father by his own
son. All for just a ration of bread. Right after describing this tragedy, Elie does something very
interesting. He says I was just fifteen years old (Wiesel 106). What he is doing here is
reminding us of another tragedy. He was only fifteen when he saw this go down. Most people
dont see something as terrible as this happen in their whole life. But Elie, only a boy at this
point, has witnessed so much. As shmoop.com puts it,
While we are spared the details of exactly how the father and son die, we are nevertheless
reminded of the personal impact that such a terrible event had on the narrator. In a way, the true
damage of these experiences can be measured by what he doesnt say about them.
This personal story is not surprisingly written with a very serious tone. Not at any time in the
book does Wiesel try to crack a joke or cheer anybody up. This is because obviously in the
concentration camps there wasnt very much to be happy about. He wants people to know that.
Wiesel also takes on a very mournful tone at certain parts of the story. There are many things he

is mournful about, and for good reason. He wishes that they wouldve taken peoples advice and
fled before any of this could happen. He mourns the loss of his family, and how he wishes that he
could have been a better son. At one point he watches his father get beaten by the SS, only to say
that he was glad that it hadnt been him. This leads me to another tone of Wiesel. He is brutally
honest. He wanted to make sure that everybody knew what happened to him when he was in the
camps. But incredibly, he doesnt only point out that bad that the Germans did. He tells of the
terrible things that the prisoners often did to each other, acting like wild animals in order to get
an extra ration of bread (like my example of the kid that killed his dad). What must have been
very hard for Wiesel though, was to tell the horrible things that even went through his own mind.
Many people would argue that he was just indifferent toward everything that happened. That is
not the case. He may seem indifferent for how honest he can be about having horrible thoughts
like abandoning the dead weight that was his father, but this honesty shows me how regretful
he was. Wiesel even gave a speech called the Perils of Indifference in which he tells of how
bad it is to be indifferent.
Considering all of the things Wiesel was forced to go through, one thing is really
surprising. He never has an angry tone, even though he has every right to be angry. He talks
about how angry he was when he was fifteen, but never says a single bad thing about the people
who made him experience all of these horrors. He is careful not to judge any of the people that
did these things to him. It doesnt make sense to people who didnt experience it, but I think this
is just like the dad in the book The Nightfather. In the book, the dad is rather forgiving to Adolf
Eichmann even though he caused many Jews to die. But the reason for this is actually really
simple. They are showing that these were horrible incidents, and arent hostile because they dont

wish anything like this to ever happen again, not even to the people that are responsible for so
many people dying.
Elie Wiesel can never forget what has happened to him. His experiences shine through in
his books and in his everyday life. A person cannot go through such a tragedy and not have it
show. It can be seen in his writing, and even in his face. In the article Why Elie Wiesel Can
Never Forget by Curt Schleier, it says sadness permeates Wiesel, surrounding him, like an
oversize winter coat, from head to foot. It;s as much as part of him as his arms and legs.
Wiesels experiences shine through because his writings are his experiences. Just like him, they
carry a permanent sadness. Wiesels life has impacted this text as much as it possibly could. As
Wiesel says Never shall I forget that night, the first night in the camp, which has turned my life
into one long night.