Question

Read this excerpt from "Hope, Despair, and Memory" by Elie Wiesel and answer the question. The survivors wanted to communicate everything to the living: the victim’s solitude and sorrow, the tears of mothers driven to madness, the prayers of the doomed beneath a fiery sky. They needed to tell of the child who, in hiding with his mother, asked softly, very softly, "Can I cry now?" They needed to tell of the sick beggar who, in a sealed cattle-car, began to sing as an offering to his companions. And of the little girl who, hugging her grandmother, whispered: "Don’t be afraid, don’t be sorry to die … I’m not." The literary device used in the above excerpt best establishes which of the following? immediacy and style trustworthy narrator immediacy and sense of place commentary and existentialism

Answer 1

Answer:

The literary device used in the above excerpt best establishes immediacy and sense of place commentary and existentialism.

This passage heightens the sense of immediacy and reinforces the idea that something happening at the present moment. This is demonstrated in the question ¨Can I cry, now?¨

The sense of place was established at the very beginning and it is directly connected to immediacy as well as commentary.

Finally existentialism, the author composed a piece of literature that contains, to varying degrees, elements of existential or proto-existential thought.

Answer 2

I don't think any of the choices fully expresses what Wiesel is trying to convey.

The key word in the choices seems to be immediacy, but that word is totally inadequate to express what is going on. Excited immediacy is what I expect to hear from a commentator telling me what is happening during a sports event.

This passage has an immense sadness and pathos connected to it. It is sad to read of a child that knows it will die. It is sad to read of a man who thinks nothing of himself and tries to comfort those who share his fate with him. It is sad to think of a child who asks permission to cry. All of these things are details that we would never think of when reading fiction. They must be based on actual experience.

The reality of this passage is conveyed, perhaps too intellectually, by the word existential. I don't like the word much, but it is the only word that describes how anyone could record events like those in the passage. So that is the answer I would choose. It doesn't come within a mile of describing what's there.

But neither does anything else.

Answer: Existential