Rhetorical Analysis Of Night By Elie Wiesel

A fate worse than death itself? Well, surely nothing could be worse than the state of death – it is the ultimate end, from there no hope for a better tomorrow exists. Can there really be fates worse than death – perhaps existing only to figure out that death has already come to stay, the body just does not know it yet. What is life but a perpetual line of hope; moreover, what is a life without joy or hope? Elie Wiesel, an “Auschwitz extermination camp” survivor speaks about the overwhelming hopelessness and despair he, along with countless others, experienced in his speech The Perils of Indifference given at “the White House on April 12, 1999” (Gavin, 1996). Mr. Wiesel does an impeccable job of addressing his audience in a way that captivates

Wiesel’s speech, he begins to speak of legacy and how his century will be judged by its successor, harshly so, for its cold-hearted acts against humanity; incidentally, implying a sense of pathos to appeal to his audience’s sense of moral right and wrong. Continuing, he ventures into how so many could arrive at a state of existence that could be construed as worse than death itself. “The ‘Muselmanner,’ as they were called [as Wiesel explains it] . . . lie on the ground, staring vacantly into space, . . . no longer felt pain, hunger, thirst. They feared nothing. They were dead and did not know it” (Wiesel, 1999). Him choosing to take this approach and provide that bit of information coupled with his opinion of how his century will be judged, Elie Wiesel manages to effectively press upon the emotions of his listeners, painting portraits that they could all mentally envision or even recall. However, cautious as to not come off as manipulative or disingenuous regarding his gratitude towards the American people, he begins to further establish his credibility by explaining why he once felt so hopeless and stripped of

Wiesel begins to shift away from a pathos tactic, he introduces ethos by painting an image of what it felt like to be trapped, cut off from the world “inside ghettoes and death camps” (wiesel, 1999). Brilliantly, he further establishes his credibility and right to address his audience – President Clinton, Mrs. Clinton, America, and the world alike in the manner he does by informing his attendees of the only shred of hope he shared with so many others. That hope being they believed “Auschwitz and Treblinka were closely guarded secrets; that the leaders of the free world . . . had no knowledge of the war against the Jews” (Wiesel, 1999). That statement alone offers the foundation on which Mr. Wiesel is able to objectively speak of President Roosevelt in a manner that otherwise could be mistaken as bitter. Sharing these bits of his history, his life within the confines of Nazi imprisonment, he is able to seamlessly combine a sense of pathos and ethos all while preparing his audience for a line of logical moral