Rhetorical Analysis Of Night By Elie Wiesel

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.

Jewish writer, professor,political activist, Elie wiesel in his memorable speech “ The perils of indifference” asserts that being “indifferent” is a major impact in people's lives. He develops his message by emphasizing the world’s indifference. For example on paragraph 13 wisel states “Indifference, then is not only a sin,it is a punishment.” Meaning that lack of concern leads to “inescapable consequences”. In addition throughout Wiesel’s speech he talks about what indifference means to him and how it is not impactful to humanity and the inhumanity of it .

“From the depths of a mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left.” This piece of text is a quote from the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel. In this piece of literature the reader gets taken along the journey of what Eliezer Wiesel faced during World War II. The reader gets to see the joy beforehand and the living hell the Jews face inside the concentration camps.

“Elie Wiesel’s views on society . . . were dramatically altered after he was victim of Nazi brutality” (Schulz 64). Years later he raised awareness for issues on ethnic and religious groups, as well as unfair treatment based on outside appearances. Today, it is easy to find groups supporting his beliefs. Wiesel’s experience gave way the world's recognition of the importance of life.

Wiesel informed people of what happened in the holocaust, yet his true purpose was to persuade and inspire change in the mindsets of powerful people. The speech was given in front of the president, his staff, and members of Congress. His purpose was to stop indifference when it comes to injustice, whether or not it is in America. “Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response.

“...Indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor-- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. The political prisoner in his cell, 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. And in denying their humanity, we betray our own. Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment.” On April 12, 1999, a Jewish Holocaust survivor named Elie Wiesel portrayed the true danger of human indifference while speaking to a large audience in addition to the President and First Lady (Bill and Hillary Clinton respectively), Congress members, and various leaders of other nations.

In the years of the Holocaust, darkness shadowed the Jewish people. They were forced to be ripped apart from their families, they were starved to the point of death, and they were overall dehumanized. These traumatizing events inspired Elie Wiesel to write his memoir, Night, which caused him to give a detailed record of the horrors of humanity that he endured. This also played a part in his speech “The Perils of Indifference”. Unfortunately, the world is not filled with light.

In his essay “Address on Indifference” Elie Wiesel gives the reader his thoughts on being indifferent. Wiesel talks about how being indifferent is morally wrong. According to Wiesel, Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment. He states that being indifferent can cause pain to others. Wiesel gives us three ways why being indifferent is morally wrong.

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

Elie Wiesel is saying through this one sentence that he wrote the book to defeat the Nazis one last time. If Elie was indifferent to his memories of the living nightmare that was the Holocaust, he would be no better than the Nazis. The indifference of the Nazis to their actions is what makes them horrible. When a person kills another person a part of the killer is lost. The Nazis somehow managed however to beat mortality in that sense.

The abstraction of his descriptions applies principally to the appearance of indifference in society, yet also extends to its effects on and appeal to the individual. To exemplify this, Weisel describes indifference as a, “strange and unnatural state” in which many of the absolute principles dividing opposite qualities are blurred. The use of both “strange” and “unnatural” imply an abstract and hypothetical purpose for this quality that is not perceived simply. Wiesel also employs the use of these words to demonstrate that indifference was not an intended component of society, as the demonstration of indifference is not natural and, according to Wiesel, altered everything mankind perceived about the world it knew. Additionally, Wiesel uses an abstract diction when describing the appeal to indifference.

Indifference is tempting Indifference is the suffering of victims Indifference is more dangerous than anger and hatred

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.

Indifference is the lack of interest, concern, or sympathy for a subject. It is one of the many problems man suffers from today. Both Niemoller and Wiesel’s works talk about indifference. They discuss apathy, about the lack of interest for your fellow man. Niemoller 's poem, “First they Came…” and Wiesel’s speech, “The Perils of Indifference” are quite similar in terms of the message.