Tow #3: Night by Elie Wiesel (IRB)

My IRB, Night by Elie Weisel, is an autobiography of the author's experiences as a concentration camp survivor. It takes place during 1941 when the Holocaust was in full effect. Wiesel, who was a young boy at the time, and his family were taken from their home, and separated among different concentration camps. He was first sent to Auschwitz, then to a number of other camps during his time of captivity. Throughout his memoir, Wiesel tells about the death of his parents, the lost of his innocence, and reveals to the audience that life or death doesn't matter anymore. The author was born in September 1928, and is a professor and political activist. He is the author of 57 books, including Night. Wiesel certainly has a lot of credibility because this book is a direct account of what he went through during the holocaust, and his work of writings also lead on to him receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. The audience that this novel was composed for are people who want to know the full and raw details of what really happened in the Holocaust. The context of this text was almost like a journal as the author takes his audience through everything he experienced while being in the concentration camps, before, and afterwards. One of the most important rhetorical devices that helped Wiesel achieve his purpose was imagery. Although the topic of the holocaust can be quite disturbing, the author does a very good job at providing the audience with full fledged imagery in helping to understand what really happened in his ordeal. With this, he is almost able to make the reader feel as if they are actually there and seeing the occurrence happening. I believe that the author's purpose was to retell his experience to show what people in the holocaust really went through, and also help people realize the importance of sharing peoples stories, especially since there are not too many survivors left to tell them. I believe that Elie Wiesel did an exceptional job at accomplishing his purpose because it really allowed me to be more historically minded and to see an unveiled version of a real story of what a holocaust survivor went through. He didn't fail to hide anything from the audience, allowing the audience to realize the importance of his experience.