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Summary Of The Perils Of Indifference

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“The Perils of Indifference” is a speech written and given by Elie Wiesel in April 1999. It’s a relatively brief speech that illustrates the after effects of being a prisoner of the Holocaust. Wiesel was there. He lived through it. The feelings that he shares in this speech are not only valid, but rather eye opening as well. He focuses on that group of people who say nothing, the indifferent ones. This group of people are often forgotten about because they are lowkey and hidden most of the time. Being indifferent means being safe and unassuming. However, that indifference can be scary. Indifference is more detrimental than people realize. Wiesel expresses his strong opinions about indifference by making the audience feel his words. …show more content…

Reading about it causes sadness and empathy. Listening to someone with firsthand knowledge of the Holocaust is emotion on steroids. Wiesel knows this. He also knows who his audience is. This speech was given at the White House in a country where Christianity is the primary religion. This is the reason that he references God in his speech. “Better an unjust God than an indifferent one” (Wiesel). In his explanation about what being indifferent means, he yanks at the heart. He uses his audience’s belief in God to drive home a point. He wants, no, he needs the audience to understand that he’d rather deal with the wrath of God than have God not care. That’s how passionate he is about people taking a stand. Taking a stand against injustice and abuse is mandatory in his eyes. It’s hard to believe that those indifferent audience members could walk away from these powerful words and not feel bad, ashamed, or embarrassed for not doing more. Not just with the Holocaust, but with all forms of slavery and …show more content…

The speech focuses on the bystanders and it makes sense. Bystanders are the ones that are unpredictable. That quality puts them in a prime position to speak out and enforce change. Indifferent people can tip the scales. Wiesel’s viewpoint is not only logical, but realistic. It’s not too much to ask people to do something and say something about the abuse that has and is happening. Indifferent people need to choose a side. Then it will, at least, be known what their morals and beliefs are. The unknown is often more chilling than the known

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Wiesel introduces his first claim by asking the audience about their perspective of the word Indifference and gives it definition and his own to then again question his audience about its effects. The reason for this structure was to get to audience to really think about what he is asking to provide their own perspective of Indifference and to see if their answer is like his own. He repeats the first letter of every word to emphasize the contrast between those who are indifferent and those who are not (which is his answer). He therefore backs up his answer by providing another one of his personal experience about what happened behind the gates of Auschwitz and the people. As he grows more towards the topic of indifference, he takes the time

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God being the object in hand, he speaks “We felt that to be abandoned by God was worse than to be punished by Him. Better an unjust God than an indifferent one.” The terminology he uses only grows his argument and pulls in the audience to jump the barrier of indifference and join his side. Including the ones suffering from indifference already being on his shoulder, using members of a religion to grow his appeal is ultimately the goal, to shed light to the non-oppressed on oppression and to reach a fast paced solution. Wiesel uses more rhetorical devices to plead his case:

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In Weiesel's own life, he faced indifference head-on when he was in the Nazi concentration camp. For example, when Wiesel was in the camp he felt “abandoned by humanity” Wiesel (8) because everyone turned the other cheek and left the Jews out to dry. With no help until the American troops got to them. Another example that Wiesel noted in his speech is that indifference is “always the friend of the enemy”. This means that the perpetrator always wins in the world of indifference because the person or people that are being put down and mistreated don't have the strength and power to help themselves get help or be free.

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Is it better to speak up or stay silent when people are hurting? Mr. Wiesel wrote the book Night to tell us what was it like to be in the concentration camps. Perils of Indifference is about how being mad is better than being indifferent. Mr. Wiesel wrote the book Night and the speech Perils of Indifference to inform everyone that people need to speak up. I think Mr. Wiesel delivered his message better in the speech Perils of Indifference.

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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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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

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In conclusion, Elie Wiesel is a Holocaust survivor that delivers his effective speech on effects of indifference and makes sure the audience is aware coming into this new century. He uses facts from his history multiple time to back up his purpose. Furthermore, he leaves the audience with sympathy due to his history, but his ambition was to act as an admonition towards all the American people; that we should not only focus on what’s affecting our nation but to look over those who are on the verge of suffering. Not to mention that Wiesel’s message can be reflected as a reminder for today’s generation to prevent history from repeating.

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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.

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Perils of Indifference delivers his message effectively, but not to the same degree of his memoir, for it isn’t able to explore these the horrors of the Holocaust, and use the same extent of literary terms because of its length

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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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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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In which millions of Jews were innocently killed and persecuted because of their religion. As a student who is familiar with the years of the holocaust that will forever live in infamy, Wiesel’s memoir has undoubtedly changed my perspective. Throughout the text, I have been emotionally touched by the topics of dehumanization, the young life of Elie Wiesel, and gained a better understanding of the Holocaust. With how dehumanization was portrayed through words, pondering my mind the most.

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You Denounce it. You Disarm it. ”(Wiesel). This was the biggest part I though Wiesel used for his strongest point of Pathos. These words made me take a step back from what exactly was being said by Wiesel, how anger and hatred are less dangerous than indifferent because hatred and anger have somewhat

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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

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