Irony In Elie Wiesel's Night

Moishe the Beadle is a character in the book Night by Elie Wiesel. The Jewish community was very fond of him. In the book it says, “He was the jack-of-all-trades in a Hasidic house of prayer…” (3). Moishe knows a lot of information from a wide range of subjects. When Elie wanted to learn about Kabbalah as a young boy, Moishe became his mentor. He helped Elie study and learn about Kabbalah when no one else would help him. When Moishe was expelled from Sighet, he witnessed the horrific slaughter of other Jews by the Nazis, he was forever changed. Even though he escaped, he was never the same again. In the novel it says, “The joy in his eyes was gone, He no longer sang. He no longer mentioned God or Kabbalah. He spoke only of what he had seen”
Throughout the novel Night ELie demonstrates several examples of irony, but I think the form that is most commonly used is dramatic irony. Because Elie is retelling the stories of his past, the readers already know what is going to happen while the characters do not. When Elie’s father says that the Nazis making them wear the Jewish star is not deadly, Elie narrates, “(Poor Father! Of what then did you die?)” (11). Elie is asking his father rhetorically what he died for if not his religion. The reader then knows that Elie’s father is going to die because the narrator already knows, but the characters at the time do not know. When Elie’s family arrives at Birkenau, the men and women are separated. In the novel it says, “I didn’t know at the time that this was the moment in time and the place where I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever” (29). Elie and his father are separated from Elie’s mother and sister. As the narrator, Elie is saying that he didn’t know that he would never see his mother and sister ever again. I think that this example of irony is significant because it reminds the reader of the horrible way that the Holocaust will affect these people, even if it has not happened yet in the