Where Is Merciful God Figurative Language
The “Where is merciful God, where is he?” excerpt including pages 64-65 of the book “Night” possesses many articulate stylistic writing choices to communicate the message of dread and sorrow when the young pipel was hung. What particularly shines through is his emotional use of connotation, dialogue, imagery, and figurative language within this two page excerpt. The excerpt is introduced by a line of dialogue, “Where is merciful God, where is He?”(Wiesel 64). This is followed by the hanging and then the imagery “total silence”, and “sun was setting”(Wiesel 64). These two descriptions accompanied by the hanging portrays a feeling of loneliness. The descriptions “screamed”, “quivered, and “weeping” then proceeds to progress the mood from
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Wiesel’s use of the word “child” and ellipsis resparked an emotion of sympathy and a feeling of surprise and disbelief(Wiesel 65). The use of ellipsis in this sentence hints the author’s inability to find an explanation for this phenomenon, and emphasizes the terror the prisoners felt seeing that the child is still suffering after almost accepting his death. The paragraph that follows adds tension to the fact that the pipel was still living. The words “lingering”, “writhing”, “still alive”, “still red”, and “not yet extinguished” tricks the reader, and at first offers a sense of hope, however it quickly shifted to further sorrow after realizing that the pipal could not be saved(Wiesel 65). The excerpt continues with a repetition dialogue of “For God’s sake, where is God?” from “Where is merciful God, where is He?”(Wiesel 65).This repetition of dialogue give readers another opportunity to contemplate the horrors of the hanging. The author follows this dialogue with an answer he found himself: “hanging here from this gallows...”(Wiesel 65). Wiesel reinforced his own idea that God is dead in this sentence using figurative language and used ellipses to reinforce a sense of loneliness after the hanging. The excerpt ended with a metaphor. Although it appears to be a simple sentence, the strong connotation of the word “corpses” is able to shock the reader; both because of the horrifying image itself and how the author was able to say it so plainly(Wiesel
Wiesel’s use of the word “child” and ellipsis resparked an emotion of sympathy and a feeling of surprise and disbelief(Wiesel 65). The use of ellipsis in this sentence hints the author’s inability to find an explanation for this phenomenon, and emphasizes the terror the prisoners felt seeing that the child is still suffering after almost accepting his death. The paragraph that follows adds tension to the fact that the pipel was still living. The words “lingering”, “writhing”, “still alive”, “still red”, and “not yet extinguished” tricks the reader, and at first offers a sense of hope, however it quickly shifted to further sorrow after realizing that the pipal could not be saved(Wiesel 65). The excerpt continues with a repetition dialogue of “For God’s sake, where is God?” from “Where is merciful God, where is He?”(Wiesel 65).This repetition of dialogue give readers another opportunity to contemplate the horrors of the hanging. The author follows this dialogue with an answer he found himself: “hanging here from this gallows...”(Wiesel 65). Wiesel reinforced his own idea that God is dead in this sentence using figurative language and used ellipses to reinforce a sense of loneliness after the hanging. The excerpt ended with a metaphor. Although it appears to be a simple sentence, the strong connotation of the word “corpses” is able to shock the reader; both because of the horrifying image itself and how the author was able to say it so plainly(Wiesel