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Rhetorical Analysis Of Elie Wiesel's Speech

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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. And knowing that his audience is educated on the subject lends him credibility because …show more content…

Elie Wiesel equalizes the environment and the audience to him by using phrases like "us." Wiesel is aware that by making them equal, he will not only increase his credibility but also their pity for the predicament. By repeatedly utilizing the pronoun "our," Wiesel establishes a sense of trust and camaraderie with the audience. He admits that everyone has made the error of turning a deaf ear and even admits that he has. His listeners must have noticed how cheese treats politicians the same as other members of the community. In this address, Wiesel urges listeners to maintain perspective regarding the state of the world, regardless of whether it directly affects them or not. He also urges listeners to act to right wrongs and uphold the rights of others. He emotionally engages the audience by bringing up the injustices that were occurring at the time this speech was …show more content…

The audience is made sympathetic to his upbringing by invoking this reminiscence, which grabs their interest. “There was no joy in his heart”. The implication in this quotation is that, despite having become stronger in certain ways, the tragedy would not have made him the man he was at the time. Afterwards, Elie compliments Bill Clinton “Commander and Chief of the army that freed me, and tens of thousands of others” and Mrs. Clinton is thanked for her efforts to help (Wiesel)” But after that, Elie accuses the government of being indifferent during World War II by literally calling them out. By saying, “We believe that Auschwitz and Treblinka were closely guarded secrets…but we learned that….” (Wiesel). Elie claims that even after learning about the camps, the US did nothing. He employs the word "we," making the audience feel guilty but equal.Although Wiesel accepts that people are aware of his story, they may also be aware of one of the numerous acts of brutality taking place around the globe. He cites these as illustrations of injustices that have gone unnoticed. “... bloodbath in Cambodia in Nigeria, India and Pakistan, Ireland and Rwanda, Eritrea and Ethiopia, Sarajevo and Kosovo; the inhumanity in the gulag and the tragedy of Hiroshima. And, on a different level, of course, Auschwitz and Treblinka.(Wiesel)” The audience is made to feel guilty or even partially responsible for not intervening

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Wiesel addresses, “As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our lives will be filled with anguish and shame”. Ellie Wiesel is conveying that there is always something that can be fixed or there is always someone who can be helped. Moreover Wiesel explains, “What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs”. Elie Wiesel’s central message is that by speaking out for the powerless, an individual can make a great impact and that there are people in the society that depend on the voice of others.

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A speaker is not credible if they attempt to make listeners feel pity for them, because the audience will view him in a degrading way. Similar to this, Wiesel is humble. He does not speak of his Nobel Peace Prize, and is emphasizing the importance of the future instead of the past in hopes of moving forward in the future. This increases Wiesel’s credibility because he is not bragging or exaggerating his words, and he has experienced this issue first hand, which allows the audience to trust Wiesel and believe his stance on the

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In “the perils of indifference” Elie Wiesel gives a message of hope while condemning the past, and persuading the audience by using the emotional language, etho, rhetorical questioning, and compare and contrast to incite change. Elie starts his speech by bring the audience attention

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By using rhetorical questions Wiesel subtly convinces the audience to care more about how their indifference will affect the upcoming generations. Elie Wiesel also uses repetition right through his speech. He repeats the word “indifference” meaning the lack of interest, concern, or sympathy. He tells his audience that he knows indifference is the easiest option but that indifference leads to suffering in all forms. Through repetition, he persuades his audience that indifference is the reason for many tragedies from the Holocaust to assassinations.

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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

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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.

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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.

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Indifference need to be gain awareness and be stopped. He develops his claim by narrating the dangers of indifference, and how it affected his life then, describes how wrongful it is to be treated in such a way. Finally Wiesel illustrates examples of how indifference affected the world. Wiesel’s purpose is to inform us about the dangers of indifference in order to bring change about it. He establishes a straightforward tone for the president, ambassadors, politicians, and congressmen.

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In the face of oppression and injustice, silence is the voice of the cowards. In Elie Wiesel’s acceptance speech, he asserts that in discrimination, neutrality is as atrocious as the oppressors. Wiesel makes a call to action, conveying that people should speak up when met with other’s oppression. I am for Elie Wiesel’s call to action, because silence is a ripple and humankind depends on it. To begin with, silence is a ripple during oppression.

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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.

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He draws attention to the cruelties inflicted on other people when a person betrays their humanity. Standing by and watching people suffer is just as damaging as inflicting the suffering. The audience feels guilty for the times they may have been bystanders and became less than human. Wiesel emphasizes that other people are affected by indifference through his use of the phrase “Indifference, then, is not only a sin, it is a punishment.” This phrase switches the idea that indifference is something that hurts an individual to something that hurts numerous other people.

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Ellie Wiesel’s “ Nobel Peace Prize '' and “The Perils of Indifference” speeches convey the idea of breaking out of the normalization of being a bystander who does not speak out against the world's injustice. Both of Wiesel's speeches express the message of the dangers of remaining indifferent when faced with suffering in the world. Wiesel continues to call attention to how tragedies will continue to occur if individuals do not speak out against them. To illustrate Wiesel’s impression of indifference in his “Nobel Peace Prize” speech he explains how people must talk out against the disasters and how people can not remain quiet anymore. Wiesel conveys this idea when he mentions being aware of this violence and terrosism and how it must not be normalized anymore.

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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

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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.

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