Hollocaust Survivor: Night by Ellie Wiesel

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“Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.” (Wiesel 2006, p. 34) Elie Wiesel is a humanitarian but better known as a holocaust survivor and the author of the book Night. Elie recounts the horrors of his experience throughout the book and revisits times which he had not touched upon in years. His book initially only sold a few copies but later on through this renewed interest, Elie Wiesel’s book skyrocketed to fame and he started his journey in his humanitarian activities which in turn earned him a Nobel peace prize and resulted in his famous speech, Hope, Despair, and Memory. In Elie Wiesel’s speech, Hope Despair and Memory Elie Wiesel reminds us through his use of pathos and ethos as a speaker of the despair that humankind can create, but through our recollection and memories obtained from such despair we can summon the future with hope of change. Elie Wiesel’s speech, Hope Despair and Memory gave in 1986 mainly focused on the great importance of remembering past memories that people tend to want to forget. The speech was very successful in persuading the audience to believe in the importance that memory serves us through the great use of pathos throughout the speech, especially the pathos that always comes from any sort of holocaust recollection. Elie uses such sentences as, “a young man struggles to readjust to life. His mother, his father, his small sister are gone. He is alone. On the verge of despair.”(Abrams, 1997) He helps to arise a strong sense of sympathy from the injustices that had plagued this time in history. This use of pathos makes it an effective use of it for it underlines the audience’s attention towards Elie Wiesel and makes them closer to his emotions an... ... middle of paper ... ...iences that we, mankind can prevent such destruction from happening, helping us shape and mold a better future or tomorrow. Elie's speech served not only as an address to the audience but also as a respect to those killed, those who suffered great injustices throughout the world, and as a reminder to those good people of the past and their memories. Elie’s speech used rhetorical devices throughout the entirety of it as I talked about such as pathos and ethos to make his point clear. When mankind chooses to remember the past experiences and better it for the future, we can progress. Elie’s speech was a very inspirational one that has touched many. It is when Elie's speech finally goes from just a speech to a lifestyle that people live and thrive by in the future everyday will he finally feel that his many acts and work as a humanitarian will finally be accomplished.

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