preview

Elie Wiesel's The Perils Of Indifference

Decent Essays

Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel in his speech, “The Perils of Indifference,” stresses that becoming indifferent is the most dangerous thing that can happen to a person and their surroundings. He supports his claim by first defining and describing indifference, he then talks about how it can be described in many different ways, but ultimately indifference is the end. Wiesel’s purpose is to warn his audience against the dangers of insouciance and its effects on the world. He establishes and apprehensive tone for his audience due to the traumatizing events of his past. Wiesel uses different forms of structure throughout his speech, such as defining words and concepts, asking questions, and shedding light on his personal experiences having lived …show more content…

This not only makes the audience think, but gives them insight to what Wiesel was thinking regarding that question. The use of hypophora in his speech was effective in developing his purpose because he was able to answer the questions many people wanted to know with regards to indifference. Wiesel asked his audience “What will the legacy of this vanishing century be? How will it be remembered in the new millennium ?” he then goes on to answer this question by saying “Surely it will be judged, and judged severely, in both moral and metaphysical terms. These failures have cast a dark shadow over humanity… So much violence, so much indifference” (page 1). Wiesel essentially answers his question, the legacy of the century will be judged because of the failures and remembered as a violent time because of all the indifference being felt around the world. Although Wiesel did answer the question he had asked originally, he wanted to ask the audience this question so that they were able to respond and think about how they feel their generation will be seen years later. Wiesel uses anaphora in his speech to make an impact on his audience. He repeats “this time” to make a statement that “this time” things have changed and “this time, the world was not silent” (page 6). He uses this to repeat the important phrase, “this time,” so that it is instilled in his audience’s mind, this way the audience can remember and is able to take in consideration the meaning behind those powerful lines. Lastly Wiesel uses epistrophe in the end in his statement “Some of them —so many of them — could be saved” (page 7). By repeating “of them” he is able to emphasize that so many children could have been saved had people not become indifferent and actually cared about the lives of those many children. He uses this again to point out how powerful indifference can be, “so many

Get Access