A Rhetorical Analysis Of Moving Speech By Elie Wiesel

Writer, Elie Wiesel in his metaphorical speech “The perils of Indifference” argues that the future will never know the agony of the Holocaust and they will never understand the tragedy of the horrific terror in Germany. Wiesel wants people to not let this happen but at the time many modern genocides that are occurring and people shouldn’t be focused on just the Holocaust, they should focus on making this world a better place; moreover, Wiesel expresses his thoughts about all the genocides that has happen throughout the years. He develops his message through in an horrifying event that took place 54 years ago the day “ The perils of Indifference” was published. Wiesel illustrates the indifferences of good vs evil. He develops this message

Elie Wiesel’s speech was designed to influence his listeners into action by warning them about the dangers indifference can have on society as it pertains to human atrocities and suffering. The speech helped the audience understand the need for every individual to show their moral conscience in the face of injustice. Wiesel attempts to convince his audience to support his views by using his childhood experience and relating them to the harsh realities while living in Nazi Death Camps as a boy during the Holocaust. He warns,

Author and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel in his emphatic speech, “The Perils of Indifference,” asserts the dangers that indifference brings to the world. He develops his message by explaining how being indifferent affects a person's emotions through imagery. For instance, in Wiesel’s speech, it states, “During the darkest of times… we felt abandoned, forgotten. All of us did.” Furthermore, the use of repetition of the word “indifference” helps demonstrate the author’s personal view towards it and the importance of how it can negatively impact society. Ultimately, the use of rhetorical questions inspired vast amounts of thought about his message of speech to the audience. Wiesel’s purpose is to warn others to not be indifferent to victims of injustice and cruelty in order to bring a change to the world and accomplish compassion in the twenty-first century. He establishes a serious tone for the readers by using stylistic and rhetorical devices such as imagery, repetition, and rhetorical questions in order to develop his message that the inhumanity of indifference and the importance of resistance is still relevant today.

Holocaust survivor and writer, Elie Wiesel in his influential speech “The Perils of Indifference,” claims that indifference is the root of all evil and inhumanity---all pain and all tragedy has resulted because of indifference. He supports his claim by highlighting the reason for “World Wars,” “Civil Wars,” “Assassinations,” “Bloodbaths,” and “Tragedy---” indifference (Wiesel par. 5) . Specifically, Wiesel uses imagery to paint an image of what the innocent victims of indifference experience. The poor “children [that] perish” because of the indifference in a man’s soul; until they see the children’s “pain” and “agony” and “hear their pleas,” until “one of them dies” because of the “violence,” “disease” and “famine,” then one will notice the dangers of indifference (Wiesel par. 23) . Further, the author flashbacks to past events that have left humans without a soul. He mentions how one day he “woke up in a place of eternal infamy, Buchenwald.” Remembering the day he is captured and the day he is “free[ed]” (Wiesel par. 1) . The problem now is that “there [i]s no joy in his heart;” he becomes a victim of indifference---the metal torture (Wiesel par. 1) . Wiesel’s purpose is to inform humanity of the dangers indifference holds in order to encourage humans to continue to hope for a world without indifference---no pain, no horror. He establishes a critical tone for readers by using stylistic devices such as imagery, flashbacks and rhetorical questions in order to achieve his purpose that indifference is monstrous and dangerous. Wiesel’s message about the inhumanity of indifference and the importance of resistance is still relevant today.

Writer Elie Wiesel in is Critical speech “The Perils of Indifference,” sheds lights on to world we live in today has evolved into a society of indifference That stripes us form are sense of human characteristics to help others in need of assistance. He supports his claim by illustrating the affect the U.S indifferences had towards the jews led to the death of countless amount of jews perishing during the holocaust seen in paragraph 2 and 18. In addition; In paragraph 8 of “The Perils of Indifference,” it states that people who believe in indifferences become “inhuman” showing no form of sympathy towards others. Finally, In paragraph 11, the author draws the connection towards the countless amounts of death during the meinel with all

Wiesel opens his speech with an appeal to ethos. He asserts, “Mr. President, Mrs. Clinton, members of Congress, Ambassador Holbrooke, Excellencies, friends:”(Wiesel 1). By associating himself with people in power, Wiesel builds his credibility. Another excerpt from the speech is, “In the place that I come from, society was composed of three simple categories: the killers, the victims, and the bystanders”(Wiesel 3). Wiesel further establishes his reliability by showing that he has personal experience pertaining to the topic. This experience leads the audience to believe that he is a reliable source.

Wiesel uses pathos in the beginning of his speech, by using He instead of I; he is able to appeal to the emotion of the audience. Through his speech, the first thing he wants to be able to do is to get the crowd to comprehend his position in the situation. He lets the audience put themselves into his shoes, so that they can view his story from the same perspective. By using He, the audience is able to sympathize and mentally place themselves into the situation of the boy, but if he used first person, the audience would be keener to pity him and would feel some restriction when addressing opinion on the speech in fear of offending the speaker, which is not the affect Wiesel was going for. He wanted his story to impact the audience and allow them to feel what happened so they would allow for a change. By addressing it in third person, allows the audience to have no restrictions when it comes to their opinion an what they take away from it. They would put their selves in the character’s shoes, because the speaker addressing the issue would be doing the same.

On the 12th of April, in the year 1999, Elie Wiesel gave a speech at the White House. Several members of congress, President Clinton, and the First Lady, Hillary Clinton, were present to listen to him. His speech became a powerful testament to the pitfalls and dangers of being indifferent to the sufferings of others. However, Wiesel’s speech was also a very skillful exercise in using rhetoric for persuasion. By using certain wording and striking the right balance of facts and emotions, he was moving the audience in the direction of understanding his point of view. He was moving the audience to not feel sympathy, but actual empathy to the events he was speaking about. To feel the as closely as he felt for these events in history. He acted as judge, jury, disappointed parent and as vengeful deity. In this paper, I will examine key elements of his speech to show that by instilling deep feelings of shame, fear, and even pride at the right moments can inspire people to open their minds to the dangers of ignoring the pleads of help from their fellow man.

Romanian-born American Jewish writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel in his critical speech, ”Perils of Indifference,” maintains the idea that indifference is inhumane. He supports his claim by using his personal experience in the Holocaust. Additionally, it states in paragraph 9 that “They were dead and did not know it.” emphasizes how indifference has made the “Muselmann” completely unaware of their fate. Further, it states in paragraph 8 that “Indifference can be tempting… troublesome… and can make our lives meaningless.” Wiesel’s purpose is to warn the people that change is needed in order to encourage the people to make a change in the world for the better so something as tragic and devastating like the Holocaust never happens again. He establishes a critical tone for readers by using stylistic devices and rhetorical devices such as imagery, contemplative questions,and word choice in order to achieve his message that indifference is inhumane. Wiesel’s message about the inhumanity of indifference and the importance of resistance is still relevant today.

On April 12, 1999, Elie Wiesel, a prominent figure and Holocaust survivor, voiced his empowered speech “The Perils of Indifference” in the East Room of the White House which was hosted by President Bill Clinton and wife, Hillary Clinton. The speech was a direct call-to-action reaching out to society for a change. This change that he desperately pleaded for warranted a need of our society to help aid assistance to those they have ignored in the past. Throughout the course of Wiesel’s speech, he managed to employ Aristotle’s means of persuasion with an ease capable of jarring his audience to want to stop such indifferences from ensuing, so that future generations could have renewed sense of hope and promise. Pathos reigned heavily in his speech through his many, notable experiences and rhetorical questions. The majority of Wiesel’s speech focused on appeals to pathos, logos, and ethos which were used to attract the audiences’ attention as well as to develop their understanding of the problem. Through these measures, Wiesel’s main goal was to persuade them to take action against indifference which he successfully achieved. Wiesel was able to use his painful memories of the torture from the Holocaust to express what he noted as “perils of indifference” and ultimately how it can lead future generations to learn from history’s mistakes.

Distinguished Jewish writer and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, in his speech, “The Perils of Indifference”, discusses the effects indifference has on one’s humanity in both? societal and individual terms. Wiesel’s purpose is to illustrate the plight of those who suffer because of indifference and to appeal to the audience's consciences. He adopts a sympathetic, haunting, and accusatory tone in order to convey to audiences that society had not learned and many victims have and will continue to suffer injustices because of indifference. Ultimately, through the means of syntax devices such as juxtaposition, anaphora, diction, and rhetorical questioning, Weisel bolsters the supporting logic of his claim that indifference is a grave malady of humanity and to amend such an ailment one must look no further than the self. Wiesel’s comprehensive speech, “The Perils of Indifference” can be divided into three definitive sections: the contextualization of the suffering that occurs both past and present, an explication of “indifference”, and lastly Wiesel's earnest undertaking and rhetorical questioning of why we practice indifference.

. One persuasive technique he uses is pathos. He uses this technique to gain empathy from the audience, to allow them to really feel like they are in the shoes of the victims. This is seen when Wiesel says “ To be abandoned by god was worse than to be punished by him” (444). The audience is able to feel how the victims felt, which helps convey his message of indifference more effectively as now they will actually get impacted by his message.

Have you ever been through a situation that has hindered you to an extent of where you couldn’t find the right words to express how it made you feel or what happened in that specific event? If so, then you’re not alone. Survivors of the holocaust, a genocide that took place during World War II to systematically kill millions of Jews, have too had a difficult time expressing the horrific period of their life after they were taken from the comfort of their homes and sent to concentration camps. Elie Wiesel, a main character in the novel Night, was a survivor and one of those people who didn’t know what words to use in terms of telling his experiences in the captivity. As a result, Wiesel found other techniques to use, which includes using words as symbols, repetition and explaining how the original meaning of a word is sometimes not enough to thoroughly tell the full story.

Indifference is a peril. Indifference is a “blurred line” between good and evil. Indifference is “unnatural.” But most of all, indifference is an end. Famous author and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel in his speech, “Perils of Indifference,” argues that since indifference is the inability to tell the difference between good and evil, indifference is dangerous. He supports his claim by first expressing his thanks to America for saving him from a horrid fate during the Holocaust. From this point, Wiesel goes on to explain how indifference is the key to conflict and how ¨dangerous¨ and ¨seductive¨ indifference can be. Wiesel also asks his audience, which are a variety of politicians, law makers, ambassadors, and members of congress, why hadn't

In the world during the time of the Holocaust, there was indifference towards the suffering of millions of Jews. When individuals reflect about the Holocaust, the majority of the time the responsibility of the terrible events is placed upon the perpetrators. However, bystanders and witnesses indirectly affected the victims of the Holocaust as well. The silence of these people played one of the largest roles in the Holocaust, they influenced it by avoiding any type of involvement and by becoming blinded towards the suffering of others. In his Academy Award acceptance speech, Elie Wiesel says, “the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference”. This exert from his speech reveals the importance