Trying to find the Right Words

15 Mar

I found two brief phrases that help describe the unimaginable in the book Night by Elie Wiesel. The phrases are “I was nothing but ashes now” (68) and “veritable hell” (70). I feel that these phrases express the unimaginable because they are good metaphors. He says that the experience is so bad that it made him feel like nothing, like ashes, and he says that the concentration camp where he was located was a literal hell. He uses to well-thought phrases to describe the unimaginable. The two sentences that I found are “My head was spinning: you are too skinny… you are too weak… you are too skinny, you are good for the ovens…” (72) and “Some ten thousand men had come to participate in a solemn service, including the Blockälteste, the Kapos, all bureaucrats in the service of Death” (67). The best way to describe the unimaginable is to not sugarcoat it. You need to be descriptive and you have to get your point across to best describe it. Mr. Wiesel does a great job of this and he also does a great job of embracing his past and not trying to hide from it.

One Response to “Trying to find the Right Words”

  1. bllbrwn423 March 17, 2013 at 2:07 pm #

    Don’t sugarcoat, when trying to express the unexpressable–that’s my take away from your post. You frame the post with this idea by returning to an echo of it in the last sentence. This echo creates unity in the piece.

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