Prompt 01
Essay task
AP LiteratureAP LanguageCommon Core ElaIB EnglishAQA
In Night, Elie Wiesel shares his experiences as a Jewish teenager enduring the Holocaust, highlighting a significant change in his identity, faith, and sense of humanity. Write a well-organized argumentative essay in which you argue that Wiesel uses the motif of silence — including both God's silence and the world's silence — as a key means for examining the erosion of faith and the moral failings of humanity in the face of horrific events.
Your essay should:
- Introduce a clear, defensible thesis that explains how Wiesel employs silence as a literary and thematic tool.
- Analyze at least three specific passages or scenes from the memoir where silence plays a significant role (for example, Eliezer's prayer life, the hanging of the pipel, the silence during liberation).
- Examine how silence takes on different meanings at various points in the narrative — as absence, protest, complicity, or trauma.
- Connect Wiesel's use of silence to the memoir's larger argument about the importance of bearing witness and the responsibility to speak out against injustice.
- Conclude by reflecting on the lasting significance of Wiesel's message for today's readers.
Requirements
Minimum 5 paragraphs | Textual evidence required | MLA or APA citation format