Subjective Writing, Essay Example

Subjective writing differs from objective writing in that subjective writing allows for the inclusion of individual emotions, perceptions, ideas, and perspectives. By contrast, objective writing endeavors to remain rooted in fact that is absent of emotion of judgment.  A work such as Elie Wiesel’s Night (1960) uses a subjective narrative to delve deeply into the personal consequences of a major historical event: the Holocaust. The use of subjective writing helps to bring the statistical and historical truths of the Holocaust into a more meaningful light for readers. An example of how Wiesel uses subjective writing to create emotional tension is the following passage: “Here or elsewhere, what did it matter? Die today or tomorrow, or later? The night was growing longer, neverending” (Weisel). These words show the almost mythic level of horror and confusion that gripped the prisoners in Nazi concentration camps and it does so in a way that coldly objective language fails to accomplish.

Similarly, Wiesel’s account of the behavior and actions of the SS guards at the camps is based in a detachment as though the SS guards are something less than human. This is an inversion of the racism used by the Nazis against their prisoners. The reversal of the “dehumanization” by race and nation is another aspect of Weisel’s subjective writing that brings power to the narrative structure of Night.  The use of subjective emotion and perspective helps to illuminate the events of history and make them poignant for all readers, despite race of heritage.

In  other words, by reaching deeply into the subjective, Weisel actually discovers the universal because anyone in the camps is likely to feel similarly no matter who or what they had been before their imprisonment. What Weisel wants the reader of Night  to feel and understand is that the crimes that were committed by the Nazis in the concentration camps were crimes against actual people and not merely “Jews.”  Weisel wants the reader to feel a human connection with both the victims of the Holocaust and the perpetrators of this terrible historical crime.

Work Cited

Weisel, Elie. Night.