By listing a series of allusions, Wiesel was referencing the meaning behind the words. Wiesel’s list becomes a functional rhetorical tool because it stimulates the audience’s mind to form associations between his allusions and his topic of indifference. Without the list of allusions, Wiesel would not have had the same effect on his audience, since it created a lasting impression on the audience through the series of historical events about indifference. Wiesel had no need to elaborate on his allusions because he wanted his audience to think and remember by themselves the indifferences listed and reflect on how over time nothing has changed.
As Foucault writes in the Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison: “But let there be no misunderstanding: it is not that a real man, the object of knowledge, philosophical reflection or technological intervention, has been substituted for the soul, the illusion of theologians. The man described for us, whom we are invited to free, is already in himself the effect of a subjection more profound than himself. A 'soul' inhabits him and brings him to existence, which is itself a factor in the mastery that power exercises over the body. The soul is the effect
…show more content…
By having the last two paragraphs laden with questions, Wiesel suggests that society needs a wakeup call to the indifference surrounding everyone. Reinforcing his argument about indifference, Wiesel offers the rhetorical questions as a final food for thought about the indifference that surrounds society, which no one does anything to change. Wiesel, through the series of questioning, engaged identity formations in the audience's thoughts of whether to take action or ignore the problem at hand, forging a lasting impact on his audience’s future
Wiesel pinpoints the indifference of humans as the real enemy, causing further suffering and lost to those already in peril. Wiesel commenced the speech with an interesting attention getter: a story about a young Jewish from a small town that was at the end of war liberated from Nazi rule by American soldiers. This young boy was in fact himself. The first-hand experience of cruelty gave him credibility in discussing the dangers of indifference; he was a victim himself.
Being the last sentence of the book, and out of all the passages I highlighted this one stood out to me and described Wiesel’s experience in just a few simple sentence. He looked at himself for the first time in many years, and did not recognize himself he saw a different person. This showed me that the concentration camps changed him he was a different person inside and out. The events that occurred to him had scared him so much that the man he saw in the mirror wasn’t him, but one who had been drained of life that looked lifeless from the events occurred in the concentration camps. He was weak and this whole passage embodies his weakness and the whole point of the concentration camps.
Elie Wiesel is a thought-provoking piece that emphasizes the importance of rhetoric and its ability to shape our perceptions and understanding of the world. In this passage, Wiesel discusses the significance of great speeches and the power of language to move individuals and communities. Wiesel's poignant reflections on the transformative power of language encourage us to recognize the vital role that rhetoric plays in shaping our personal and collective narratives. Wiesel's message is particularly relevant in today's world, where language and communication have become increasingly vital tools for shaping public opinion and discourse. Wiesel highlights the importance of careful consideration of the words we use and the messages we convey,
The Holocaust was a terrible time in the world’s history. Not many Jewish people made it out of the Holocaust alive, but Elie Wiesel not only made it through the dark years, but he also wrote a book and delivered a speech. Both of these things were meant to tell the world about the horrors that happened in the concentration camps and raise awareness about the Holocaust. The book Night tells us what Elie’s journey throughout 1943-1945 (the time of the Holocaust) was like with Nazis controlling the Jews. In the speech Perils of Indifference, Elie explains why it is dangerous to not have an opinion on certain topics.
Elie Wiesel was a young boy when he did survived the holocaust.. In his memoir Night, we follow his journey as a Jewish boy in a time where expressing your religion could mean life or death. Between living under the watch of Nazi regimes, trying to keep his father alive, and surviving the inhumanity of others, Elie’s had fought and lived through the genocide unlike any other. However, surviving the holocaust does not come without a price. Wiesel lived at the sacrifice of his faith and identity, which were left in fragments after the existence of evil that left a permanent scar on his life. At the start of life, a person will be given an identity that they will be able to shape and mold through experiences and beliefs.
The (metaphor)? represented exactly how Wiesel saw himself, or rather, what he did not see. He did not see a person. He did not see his family. He did not see a Jew. He saw what the camps had left him with after taking away everything that had mattered to
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.
To develop the theme of denial and its consequences, Wiesel uses juxtaposition and characterization. Wiesel uses juxtaposition to develop the theme of indifference and its consequences. Near the beginning of the memoir, Elie’s family is packing for their deportation to Aushwitz. There is absolute chaos, as Wiesel writes, “Bibles and other ritual objects were strewn over the dusty ground” (15). Unlike the disorder, however, Elie, on the same page, writes, “All this under a magnificent blue sky.”
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
Wiesel’s speech shows how he worked to keep the memory of those people alive because he knows that people will continue to be guilty, to be accomplices if they forget. Furthermore, Wiesel knows that keeping the memory of those poor, innocent will avoid the repetition of the atrocity done in the future. The stories and experiences of Wiesel allowed for people to see the true horrors of what occurs when people who keep silence become “accomplices” of those who inflict pain towards humans. To conclude, Wiesel chose to use parallelism in his speech to emphasize the fault people had for keeping silence and allowing the torture of innocent
When the young boy asks, “Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain silent”, (paragraph 5) again the audience is prompted to emotionally respond. They have to realize that it was all of them, all of us, who remained silent and that this silence must never happen again. Wiesel demonstrates a strong use of pathos throughout his speech to encourage his audience to commit to never sitting silently by while any human beings are being treated
In seeing human beings as less than human beings, individuals were able to treat one another with a lack of dignity and voice. Wiesel 's work reminds us that anytime voice is silenced, dehumanization is the result. This becomes its own end that must be stopped at all
Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. " Hope and an optimistic attitude are characteristics of a rational and humane mindset. Documenting how these ideals change throughout a period of time in writing can be done through various means of rhetoric including figurative language. In Elie Wiesel 's personal memoir Night, he incorporates similes and metaphors to effectively convey how the victims ' humanity deteriorated throughout the course of the Holocaust. Wiesel 's figurative language at the beginning of the novel conveys how the Jewish people followed commendable politesse and practiced reasonable behavior early on in the Holocaust.
The entire world was so ignorant to such a massacre of horrific events that were right under their noses, so Elie Wiesel persuades and expresses his viewpoint of neutrality to an audience. Wiesel uses the ignorance of the countries during World War II to express the effects of their involvement on the civilians, “And then I explain to him how naive we were, that the world did know and remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent when and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation” (Weisel). To persuade the audience, Elie uses facts to make the people become sentimental toward the victims of the Holocaust. Also, when Weisel shares his opinion with the audience, he gains people onto his side because of his authority and good reputation.