“He was finally free, but there was no joy in his heart. He thought there never would be again”. This quote stated by Elie Wiesel from his speech, “The Perils of Indifference”, refers to the day Elie Wiesel got liberated from the Holocaust when he was young. The Holocaust was just one of the many horrific tragedies that occurred during that century. In hopes of changing the future for the better, Wiesel decides to deliver a speech about helping the victims of injustice. He gives this speech intended for the President, Mrs. Clinton, members of Congress, Ambassador Holbrooke, Excellencies, and friends hoping that they will make positive changes for the future. By using rhetorical strategies such as anaphora, rhetorical questions, and ethos, Wiesel tries to help the victims of injustice and prevent future tragedies from happening. Throughout Wiesel’s speech, he used a copious amount of anaphora. Wiesel used this technique to help get his point across to the audience. He explains how easy it is to use indifference; consequently, people are taking opportunities from others. Wiesel explains, “our work, our dreams, our hopes” (Wiesel 1-2), to show the audience what indifference is effecting in their lives. By repeating the word “our” before each subject that is being affected, he is showing the audience that the victims being affected have their own opportunity for work, dreams, and hopes. By others being indifferent, the victims may not have those opportunities anymore.
The message that is sent across in this speech is also something that makes it so effective. Wiesel’s goal is not only to inform the people of the horrible events of the Holocaust, but also a call to action. This call to action is to end indifference throughout the world. Wiesel tries throughout the speech to inspire his audience within the White House, as well as the people of the world to act in times of human suffering, injustice, and violence. Within this call to action, Wiesel argues that indifference is an action worse than any other. Even anger, according to Wiesel, is a more positive action than indifference. “Even hatred at times may elicit a response. You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it. Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response.” When Wiesel states this simple, yet powerful statement, it forces any listener to consider how negative of an emotion hatred is, then puts indifference well below it. Wiesel also addresses how easy it is for any person to be indifferent. He states, “Of course, indifference can be tempting—more than that, seductive. It is so much easier to look away from victims.” This quote
Wiesel is effective with his speech by connecting exaggeration within his revelation. He questions the guilt and responsibility for past massacres, pointing specifically at the Nazi’s while using historical facts, such as bloodbaths in Cambodia, Algeria, India, and Pakistan to include incidents on a larger level such as Auschwitz to provide people with a better idea (Engelhardt, 2002). He is effective in putting together the law and society’s need for future actions against indifference by stating, “In the place I come from, society was composed of three simple categories: the killer, the victims, and the bystanders” 7.(Wiesel 223).
Wiesel does a wonderful job with his use of pathos throughout the speech by making the audience reflect on his words and creates a strong emotional reaction for what is being said. From being a survivor of the Holocaust, one of the darkest parts of history as well as the most shallow times for humanity. Immediate sympathy is drawn from the audience. When he states that himself endured the horrible conditions these people had to live in. He then explains to us that the people there, “No longer felt hunger, pain, thirst. They feared nothing. They felt nothing. They were dead and did not know it.” With saying this it brings forth feelings of guilt, one of the most negative emotions to accumulate a reaction towards these events. Also numerous people throughout the world long for world peace and to hear the inhumane acts that was once acted upon an innocent man, makes their stomach's sink. Wiesel defines its derivation, as “no difference” and uses numerous comparisons on what may cause indifference, as a “strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur.” Like good and evil, dark and light. Wiesel continues to attract the audience emotionally by stating this he is aware of how tempting it may be to be indifferent and that at times it can be easier to avoid
He states, “Of course, indifference can be tempting—more that, seductive. It is so much easier to look away from victims. It is so much easier to avoid such rude interruptions to our work, dreams, our hopes. It is after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person’s pain and despair.” (Wiesel 2) In this quote Wiesel is trying to explain the power of indifference and affect it can have on the audience, if the audience chooses to pursue it. He uses strong diction in this quote too by using words like “tempting” or “seductive”. This makes the reader realize the power of indifference. He includes this section in speech to show the reader what can happen when they are or act indifferent so that way audience won’t want to try being
“Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response. Indifference is not a beginning; it is an end.” (American Rhetoric). This is a sentiment that Elie Wiesel pushes throughout his speech, The Perils of Indifference. Elie Wiesel was a Romanian born, Jewish writer, and was a survivor of the holocaust (Berger). In his speech, The Perils of Indifference, he discusses how indifference has hurt him, and everyone throughout the world. In this speech Wiesel uses appeals to pathos to make his argument effective. Examples are scattered across the speech to make it more appealing, and provide real world context for what he is arguing about. The last of the rhetorical choices the speaker makes is definition, in this speech Wiesel defines indifference, and uses this definition to prove why indifference hurts people. In Elie Wiesel’s speech, The Perils of Indifference, he argues that indifference hurts people, and his argument is effective by using various rhetorical choices.
“What is indifference? Etymologically, the word means "no difference." A strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur between light and darkness, dusk and dawn, crime and punishment, cruelty and compassion, good and evil.” Wiesel defines the term to match the description of how he feels about the word. The way he defines the word is that to have an indifferent attitude you are helping no one. Societies in wish for help are not able to receive any due to our disinterested attitudes. With the term that is defined it helps Wiesel accomplish his purpose that bearing an indifferent attitude helps no one. Having that attitude you subsist not exist. Many tropes and schemes are present in the text, and imagery. “Over there, behind the black gates of Auschwitz, the most tragic of all prisoners were the "Muselmanner..," and, “Wrapped in their torn blankets, they would sit or lie on the ground, staring vacantly into space, unaware of who or where they were…” This backs his claim using imagery for us to imagine how they looked and brutally they were treated. This is what many victims went through during that time. Furthermore, the trope Erotema is used frequently. “Is it a philosophy? Is there a philosophy of indifference conceivable?” Many times Erotema is used for the audience to think and conform their own opinions of what
Elie Wiesel’s speech falls into the deliberative genre category, and 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 exercise 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, “To be indifferent to suffering is to lose one’s humanity” (Wiesel, 1999). Wiesel persuades the audience to embrace a higher level of level moral awareness against indifference by stating, “the hungry children, the homeless refugees-not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope, is to exile them from human memory”. Wiesel’s uses historical narrative, woven with portions of an autobiography to move his persuasive speech from a strictly deliberative genre to a hybrid deliberative genre.
Elie Wiesel has given the listener a wonderful opportunity to feel the intense movement of his speech, “The Perils of Indifference”. His speech is centered around the need for vigilance in the face of evil. Throughout this speech, with which he moved so many, he shared his experience with being sent to Buchenwald, a concentration camp, the treacherous conditions in which they were living, and the way that indifference has separated human beings. He explained, that through anger and hatred a great poem or symphony can be written, because “One does something special for the sake of humanity because one is angry at the injustice that one witnesses.” (Wiesel, 1999/16, p. 78). The three strategies that will be explored throughout this analysis are ethos, logos, and pathos.
The general argument made by Elie Wiesel in his speech “The Perils of Indifference,” is that we need to open our eyes and realize that not everything can be sunshine and flowers all the time. More specifically, Wiesel emphasizes that the world needs to be aware and to empathize towards the victims of those of us that have
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 “The Perils of Indifference” is a mind opening and emotional speech that prompts the audience to change the indifference that plagues America and many people in this time and age. He expresses to the audience that indifference is the reason appalling and horrifying events, such as the Holocaust, occur and why no one takes immediate actions to help the victims. To get his point across, Wiesel uses his own history and experiences so that the audience can visualize the Holocaust through the eyes of a survivor and to project the feelings of hopelessness and defeat that the victims felt when no one came to end the injustice. In this critique, Elie Wiesel’s rhetorical speech of indifference will show its effectiveness through testimony, emotion, and rhetorical questions; this speech accomplished its goal and without a doubt persuaded most of the audience to call out for change in indifference.
Elie Wiesel was a prisoner in the concentration camps of Auschwitz and in Buchenwald as a young boy (“Wiesel, Elie”). He lost his father, mother, and sister during his time as a prisoner (“Wiesel, Elie”). In 1945, Wiesel was finally liberated from Buchenwald were he had witnessed pain and despair (Wiesel). Elie Wiesel had a speech called “The Perils of Indifference”. During the speech, Wiesel is able to influence the audience on his views of indifference. Elie show how indifference has a major role in the past, present, and future of the nation.
In Elie Wiesel’s Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, Weisel asserts the grief and despair to whom families died in the Holocaust. Wiesel first empathizes on the past events through a strong Paths, he then describes the pain of the Holocaust by use of Ethos and to conclude he makes it crystal clear of the fear from the camps by the use of Anaphora. Wiesel’s purpose was to show his honor and sympathy towards getting this award. He seems to have a mixed race and age audience in mind because this terrible event put a cloak of darkness around the Jews and Wiesel is taking it off with the use of his diction and tone.