Blogging for Night #1- Literary Devices

1. "Pressed up against others in an effort to keep out the cold, head empty and heavy at the same time, brain a whirlpool of decaying memories." -Pg. 93
This is a metaphor describing how the years of abuse had left the sufferers numb from feeling much of anything, only leaving with them an ongoing burden that they would have very little hope of ever seeing the light again. What remains is the fading recollection of their former selves, who they knew they were, circling inside their own heads, on loop, repeating, the sufferers trying to salvage their memory. But with each passing loop, the thread becomes shorter and dissolves into itself like a downward spiral, like a whirlpool.

2. "Stronger than cold or hunger, stronger than the shots and the desire to die, condemned and wandering, mere numbers, we were the only men on Earth." -Pg.83
Wiesel uses a hyperbole here to emphasize how the Jews' minds had become robotized, mechanical, as if made up on only numbers. The passage gives us the imagery that they had felt practically immortal by surviving the worst of hell. It also describes Wiesel's feelings towards his oppressors as being too evil to be human.

3. "When Sodom no longer found favor in Your eyes, You made the sky rain down fire and sulfur. But these men here, whom You have betrayed... They pray before You! They praise your name!" -Pg. 64
The entire paragraph refers to Biblical stories in which God takes it upon himself to rid the disease of evil men in the world through supernatural disasters. They are allusions, as well as to the concept of God himself, and he compares them to what was happening in the concentration camps and how God seems to be absent while evil triumphs. The effect is one of despair, and losing hope in what had been told as true throughout centuries.

4. The author himself points out two cases of euphemisms- one is on Pg. 17 with "We settled in. (What a word!)" and another is on Pg. 19- ""...it's easier when the owners are on holiday..." On holiday!"
The Jews attempt to deconstruct the true motivation of the Germans and see the new hard-boiled conditions as merely makeshift. Wiesel, however, can't help but feel the very notions of this new life being anywhere close to what they once had as absurd. The reader is supposed to realize that phrases like "settled in" and "on holiday" do not really apply here, and they are merely small words attempting to cover up for the larger picture.

5. "Like a wild beast, I cleared a way for myself to the coffee cauldron." -Pg. 101
A simple simile is used here to emphasize just how ravenous he had become for his own survival, and as well as for his father's. He compares himself to an animal because he is now only obliged to keep his own family alive- everyone else is just competition.