Bone
Laura Bone
Per 5
11/7/08
Fear Pervades Night
There are several themes in the book Night by Elie Weisel, including dehumanization, survival of the fittest, loss, the salvation of love, and man’s cruelty. One of the more prominent themes that Weisel also uses in his book is that of fear and how it affects the Jews throughout the story. He emphasizes this theme of fear through the use of literary devices such as, imagery, metaphor, and tone.
Weisel effectively uses imagery to better show and describe to his readers exactly what he and others went through while living in the concentration camps. As he and the other Jews are headed for the fire pits upon their arrival at the first camp, he says “I was face to face with the angel of death.” (31), believing he going to burn to death in the pits. The angel of death just represents death itself, for death can not have a face, but to make it more humanized and to make it more relatable Weisel says he is looking death in the face. Really it means he is about to come to his death. He was terrified because of this revelation. Another instance of imagery used to describe fear is shown through a man who did not pass the selection process and is about to be sent to the crematory, “Suddenly his eyes would become blank, nothing but two open wounds, two pits of terror.” (72). He lost his faith with God and that is what mainly sent him to the crematory. Once, his faith started to crack he lost the will to live and quit putting up a struggle to survive. This man is desolate without his God, thus, unchecked terror about death has overtaken him and this terror shows in his eyes, for he knows his doom is at hand. The imagery helps to show the full impact that fear has on an individual and how each may see it in a different way.