The Emotional Effect of Elie Wiesel’s, The Perils of Indifference In Elie Wiesel’s heart-wrenching speech, the Perils of Indifference, he uses various rhetorical appeals to explain his point to the audience. He shares his personal experience of the Holocaust and what happened to those around him to show that indifference, albeit comfortable, is the reason the jews suffered so much for so long. Political officials, acquaintances, and any of the others who bore witness to his speech were able to empathize and understand Wiesel through his use of ethos, pathos, and logos. The Perils of Indifference tells of Wiesel’s experience in the concentration camps and his experience being freed from one. Wiesel shows thanks to the American army as they were the ones who freed him and then goes into his main point: indifference brings more suffering to those who suffer and shows the inhumanity of those who are indifferent. He tells of many instances and …show more content…
In doing this he shows he has credibility behind his words. Wiesel, “As a young jewish boy . . . woke up . . . in a place of eternal infamy called Buchenwald” (paragraph 1). Telling the audience of when he woke up in Buchenwald, which was a concentration camp, he uses his time in the camps to support his claims throughout his speech, proving to his audience that he has reliability. Beside ethos, Wiesel tugs on the heartstrings of the audience by using pathos. Wiesel tells of, “The ‘Muselmanner,” . . . wrapped in their torn blankets . . . staring vacantly into space” (paragraph 6). Describing these people saying that, “They no longer felt pain, hunger, thirst . . . they were dead and did not know it” (paragraph 6). Using such harsh imagery and descriptive detail when giving Wiesel's speech elicits strong emotional responses from the audience, making the audience empathetic to Wiesel’s purpose for his
One way Wiesel persuades his audience is using his own life experiences, and trauma to further express his intelligence on the Holocaust
During the Holocaust, six million men, women, and children were tortured and died. In the autobiography, “Nights” by Elie Wiesel he describes his experience being in the camps of torture during the Holocaust. Indifference is a main theme throughout the book and the Holocaust however, indifference can cause coldness in others and within themselves. Indifference shows how others make people not believe in themselves, giving up on things people love, and refusal of care.
In the East room of the White House during the 12th of April 1999, Elie Wiesel, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and a Holocaust survivor, elaborates in his hopeful speech, “The Perils of Indifference,” the apathy of the American government to the sufferings of the people victimized by the tragic past to show how indifference can cause misery to other people. By stating his personal experiences, questioning his audience, and by citing proofs and facts, he was able to appeal to his audience emotionally and logically; thus, conveying his message of hope to welcome the new century and move them towards social action and away from indifference. Wiesel’s purpose is to share his experiences in order to remind the world, not just his audience, that people
Wiesel emphasizes the problem of apathy using pathos and ethos to make his case. Elie Wiesel achieves this in a number of ways by putting the audience and himself on an equal footing, and because of his earlier success, he has credibility even before he starts talking about the idea of indifference. Elie Wiesel urges his audience to take action to fight the indifference in society and between nations. This speech attempts to educate listeners on the speaker's viewpoint on indifference and how societies respond to disasters.audience in his shoes and the shoes of others who have suffered as a result of indifference. Elie Wiesel's life has been marred by tragedy.
Wiesel wanted people to remember those who did not make it, “Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.” By forgetting about the tragic events and the lives lost in the Holocaust, we fall under the impression that the lives lost in the Holocaust were not important to remember, but they were. Millions of lives, innocent lives, had been lost simply because people were of Jewish faith and that was enough for Adolf Hitler to say that they were less than. Wiesel had hoped that he could persuade the people into continuing to remember what had happened. He had hoped that people would learn from the tragic events of the Holocaust, and they would fight against indifference and prevent something like the Holocaust from happening again.
The general statement made by Elie Wiesel in his speech, The Perils of Indifference, is that indifference is sinful. More specifically, Wiesel argues that awareness needs to be brought that indifference is dangerous. He writes “Indifference is not a beginning, it is an end”. In this speech, Wiesel is suggesting that indifference is dangerous it can bring the end to many lives. In conclusion Wiesel's belief is suggesting that indifference is an end, it needs to be noticed and taken care of.
Elie Wiesel Rhetorical Speech Analysis Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor and winner of a Nobel peace prize, stood up on April 12, 1999 at the White House to give his speech, “The Perils of Indifference”. In Wiesel’s speech he was addressing to the nation, the audience only consisted of President Clinton, Mrs. Clinton, congress, and other officials. The speech he gave was an eye-opener to the world in his perspective. Wiesel uses a variety of rhetorical strategies and devices to bring lots of emotion and to educate the indifference people have towards the holocaust. “You fight it.
In the speech, titled “The Perils of Indifference,” Elie Wiesel showed gratitude to the American people, President Clinton, and Mrs. Hillary Clinton for the help they brought and apprised the audience about the violent consequences and human suffering due to indifference against humanity (Wiesel). This speech was persuasive. It was also effective because it conveyed to the audience the understanding of
Elie Wiesel voiced his emotions and thoughts of the horrors done to Jewish people during World War II whilst developing his claim. Wiesel “remember[s] his bewilderment,” “his astonishment,” and “his anguish” when he saw they were dropped into the ghetto to become slaves and to be slaughtered. He repeats the words “I remember” because he and the world, especially those who suffered in the ghettos and camps, would never be able to forget how innocent suffered. Consequently, he emphasized that “no one” has the right to advocate for the dead. Like many other people in the world, he lost his family during the war.
In his 1986 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Elie Wiesel strives to inform his audience of the unbelievable atrocities of the Holocaust in order to prevent them from ever again responding to inhumanity and injustice with silence and neutrality. The structure or organization of Wiesel’s speech, his skillful use of the rhetorical appeals of pathos and ethos, combined with powerful rhetorical devices leads his audience to understand that they must never choose silence when they witness injustice. To do so supports the oppressors. Wiesel’s speech is tightly organized and moves the ideas forward effectively. Wiesel begins with humility, stating that he does not have the right to speak for the dead, introducing the framework of his words.
On December 5, 1999, Elie Wiesel delivered a speech at the White House that left everyone there considering what he had just said. Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, was abducted by German Nazis when he was 12 years old along with his parents, three sisters, and mother. In his address "The Perils of Indifference," in which he discusses the injustices that individuals must bear and challenges the audience to become activists so as never to overlook the pain of others, Elie was asked to the White House to discuss the Nazis. His use of rhetorical techniques including parallelism, repetition, and rhetorical questions fills his speech with empathy. Elie Wiesel uses rhetorical strategies including rhetorical questions, pathos, and parallelism to make his speech "The Perlis of Indifference," in which he explains the injustices
Elie Wiesel, an American Jewish holocaust survivor, that was also a political activist, writer, and professional speaks a heartfelt speech to get across his message about the people who died in the Holocaust by using rhetorical techniques By using logos, Wiesel reiterates what it looked like to be a child and live through the holocaust that affected everyone around him. As a child, he was not able to thoroughly understand what it was like being a child when the Nazis made all Jewish citizens go to ghettos, using sealed cattle cars, which paints a logical picture. “A young Jewish boy discovers the kingdom of night. I remember his bewilderment, I remember his anguish.”
One way the speech was successful at delivering his message well is its length remains concise while also managing to contain lots power with its heart wrenching words. Within his speech, he bluntly states that if people had cared about what was happening to the Jews, so many lives could have been saved, and by repeatedly saying that, he makes his message very clear. A second reason that “Perils of Indifference” conveys its message effectively is the added dynamic of sound and visuals. Elie’s weary and regretful tone of voice while reading “Perils of Indifference” provides an extra perspective on the meanings of the words that can’t be shown in a book. Through his speech, he shows that he laments the Holocaust occurring, and wants people to understand that they can’t be bystanders to the world’s
In his noteworthy speech, “The Perils of Indifference,” Elie Wiesel claims that indifference, a force which he struggles to characterize, is the root of many of the differences between highly capable and influential societies such as the United States and oppressed groups, often composed of minorities, and prevents the development of truly compassionate feelings amongst these societies. Wiesel employs a paradoxical portrayal of indifference, an abstract diction regarding its effects, and a simple yet evocative syntax when portraying the consequences of indifference in the twentieth century. In doing so, he develops his purpose of motivating Congress and people worldwide to make changes regarding their individual outlook on the surroundings
Elie Wiesel is a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust and a Nobel Prize winner. Elie Wiesel delivered once again one of his famous speeches the “The Perils of Indifference”, which was hosted by the White House and accompanied by the President of the United States Barrack Obama and Secretary Hillary Clinton and other fellow government officials. When Elie Wiesel was giving out his speech, Elie Wiesel was warning the American people or the millenniums of the dangers of indifference, using his own personal experience to influence the millenniums and American people. Elie Wiesel “The Perils of Indifference,” also, is one of the influential speeches because he uses his own personal experience.