Writers often return to images throughout the course of a
story to give the reader a sense of continuity. It is a common technique in many forms
art, including poetry, fiction, and film. In the book Night, Elie Wiesel uses
metaphorical flame imagery to create unity.
Relatively
early in the book, as the Jews of Sighet are being transported by train from their home
to the first of several concentration camps, a minor character named Mrs. Schachter
begins screaming, “Jews, look! Look at the fire! Look at the flames!” When the Jews
look, there are no flames. This happens several times on the journey. The last time, as
they arrive at Auschwitz, they finally see the flames that Mrs. Schachter
foreshadowed.
Later, Wiesel includes a sort of poem in the
middle of the narrative to describe the lasting effect of the experience on him. One of
the lines is, “Never shall I forget the flames that consumed my soul
forever.”
A little further on, Wiesel gives us another
metaphorical flame image: “A dark flame had entered my soul and devoured
it.”
By returning again and again to the flame and fire
imagery, Wiesel keeps the destructive and dehumanizing nature of the ordeal at the
forefront of the readers’ minds.
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