Is Elie Wiesel's Speech Analysis: The Perils Of Indifference

Henry Hultberg

Mr. Bolton

CIHS Public Speaking

7 March, 2023

Great Speech Analysis: The Perils of Indifference Elie Wiesel, in his persuasive speech, “The Perils of Indifference”(1999) emphasizes the dangers of apathy and indifference and that people should not look away from the pain and suffering that people go through. Wiesel develops and supports his thesis with his use of imagery, repetition, and rhetorical questions(vocabulary. com). Wiesel’s purpose is to persuade the audience that people should not turn away from human suffering and ignore it. Wiesel is addressing the White House, as he emphasizes in a formal tone that being indifferent to other people's suffering only increases the suffering that people face. Elie Wiesel was born

as part of the Millennium Evenings, a series of speeches and lectures hosted by then President of the United States, Bill Clinton and First Lady, Hillary Clinton. These speeches had a focus on the end of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century. Wiesel’s speech has a theme of looking back at what happened in the previous century as well as the emphasis on how we should not forget about what happened in the twentieth century and avoiding indifference in the new millennium. Wiesel, having lived through the Holocaust, in some of the most brutal concentration camps to have been used by the Nazi regime, had experienced the apathy of world leaders as the jews in Auschwitz and Buchenwald were

Anger can at times be creative. One writes a great poem, a great symphony. One does something special for the sake of humanity because one is angry at the injustice that one witnesses. But indifference is never creative. Even hatred at times may elicit a response. You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it.

Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response. Indifference is not a beginning; it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim”

Wiesel also repeats other words throughout his speech as in a previous part of his speech, he repeats the word “God” as he talks about how it is always worse for someone to be ignored by God than to be punished by God. Wiesel uses repetition to complement his use of allusion and imagery.

The last of the main rhetorical devices that Wiesel uses is rhetorical questions. Wiesel uses rhetorical questions to build upon his thesis about indifference. Rhetorical questions can often make an audience think and question what happens in life as it is, which can play a large part in