Night

Close Read

In groups, read the excerpt from Night (page 307 in your textbook). After you have read it, go back and do a close read with your group, answering the questions below.

To receive credit, EVERY ANSWER MUST CONTAIN QUOTES, a.k.a. TEXT EVIDENCE, with the LINE NUMBER IN PARENTHESES AFTER EACH QUOTE (MLA style). QUOTES MUST BE INCORPORATED INTO COMPLETE SENTENCES; any quote standing by itself will not count for credit. Question #1 is done for you, as an example of a full-credit response.

Lines 1-12

  1. Authors write for various purposes. They may write to inform, persuade, or entertain. What do the first two paragraphs of the memoir reveal about the author’s purpose?
    The author’s purpose is to inform readers about his experiences as a prisoner in a concentration camp. The reader quickly realizes that the author is overworked by hauling “heavy slabs of stone” (8) and is probably underfed, having received only “soup” (4) for dinner.
  2. Authors sometimes use the rhetorical device ofirony to convey their purpose. Verbal irony occurs when an author writes one thing but means something else. What example of verbal irony can you find in the first paragraph? What is the author really trying to say?

Lines 38-40

  1. Tone is the author’s attitude toward his subject. It is created by the author’s choice of words and examples. Reread lines 28-40. What words does the author utilize to establish his tone? How would you describe the tone?
  1. What does the word reprieve mean? Rewrite the sentence, replacing the word reprieve with a synonym.

Lines 38-52

  1. An important person in the block is the Blockälteste. What do you learn about this person from the description?
  1. Authors reveal purpose through details. What do the details about the Blockältestereveal about the author’s purpose?

Lines 61-65

  1. An allusion is a rhetorical device that references a famous person, place, event, or work outside the text. What allusion do you find in these lines?
  1. Why is this comparison especially strong under these circumstances?

Lines 67-73

  1. Authors convey tone by using words with particular connotations, or shades of meaning, positive or negative. Find a word in this passage with a negative connotation. What tone is created by the use of this word?
  1. What word with a similar meaning might have a positive connotation?

Lines 83-86

  1. An author sometimes repeats a word with a specific connotation to reinforce the tone. What words or phrases are repeated in this passage?
  1. What word with a similar meaning might have a positive connotation?
  1. What does “emaciated” mean? Rewrite the sentence, replacing “emaciated” with a synonym.

Lines 89-94

  1. Authors use contrast, or showing difference, to convey their purpose. How does Wiesel describe Yossi and himself? How does he describe those who have been selected?
  1. Why might Wiesel have chosen to depict this contrast?

Lines 117-120

  1. Authors use the rhetorical device of repetition to convey their purpose. What word does the author repeat four times in this passage? What effect does this repetition cause?
  1. What does it suggest about the author’s purpose in this passage and in the memoir?
  1. What does execute mean in this passage? Rewrite the sentence, replacing “execute” with a synonym.

Lines 131-141

  1. Authors convey their attitude about a character by using specific words to describe that character’s actions. How does Wiesel create a complex picture of the Blockälteste?

Lines 158-161

  1. Another rhetorical device,parallelism, is the repetition of words, phrases, and sentences that have similar grammatical structures. Identify the parallel structures in this passage. Explain the effect the parallelism creates.
  1. What does decisive mean? Rewrite the sentence, replacing “decisive” with a synonym.
  1. What does din mean? Rewrite the sentence, replacing “din” with a synonym.

Rhetorical Devices

  1. Review this packet and list the rhetorical devices used in Night.

Connotation and Denotation

  1. A word’s denotation is its literal, dictionary definition; its connotation is its shade of meaning, positive or negative. Use a dictionary to determine the denotation of each word below. Then, use context to determine its connotation.
  2. Piercing (10)
  3. Crucible (145)
  4. Inheritance (165)