Through a wide variety of rhetorical devices the orator, Wiesel, attempts to instill a form of guilt into his audience, as he makes his desperate plea to the American people, and to the president, to take a stand against the great evil he witnessed. Wiesel uses apostrophe, juxtaposition, and causal analysis to ensure he effectively drives his message home. He implements them each in their own way to ensure the necessary ethos and pathos is built so that Mr. Wiesel can sway his audience to his opinion, and ultimately encourage them cancel visit to Bitburg, achieving his final rhetorical goal. Juxtaposition plays an essential role throughout the oration in evoking pathos, more specifically guilt …show more content…
and abhorrence. What Wiesel does to evoke this emotion is the contrast between the horrors of Nazi Germany, "Mr. President, I have seen children, I have seen them being thrown in the flames alive. Words, they die on my lips", with the historical moral standard of American people. He expresses strong gratitude, "Mr. President, I was there. I was there when American liberators arrived. And they gave us back ourt lives. And what I felt for them then nourishes me to the end of my days and will do so.", but he also expresses dismay that this standard is not being upheld, that these values are being disregarded, a comparison which instills guilt in the audience. Moreover, the most important juxtaposition is clear throughout the piece, the choice between indifference, siding with the killers, and the moral choice, standing against oppression with the victims. Through clear,concise diction he lays out the difference between the two, "For the opposite of love, I have learned, is not hate, but indifference. Jews were killed by the enemy but betrayed by their so-called allies". He makes it clear to the audience through this juxtaposition, that they are better than this, that they can rise above this terrible indifference by cancelling the visit. In conveying his message, causal analysis is key in expressing his objection. He makes the case of what allowed the Jews to be," betrayed by their so-called allies, who found political reasons to justify their indifference or passivity"; he lets them know it was politics that allowed the resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto to be slaughtered, "Every underground received help except the Jewish underground." It's through these analysis' that he reveals to the reader that the underlying cause for all of these issues: politics. Now that he has revealed the problem he is able to reveal a chance for the people to make it right,".. as all issues related to that awesome event, transcends politics and diplomacy." Through this analysis, he's able to put a face on the issue, the true reason why this event going forward, and this a key tool that he uses alongside his most important rhetorical tool, apostrophe. Possibly the most important rhetorical technique applied throughout the speech, is apostrophe.
Wiesel uses it cunningly as his main tool to force an action. Using this technique to accomplish his goals is interesting, as instead of using this to build ethos for himself, he uses it to draw attention to and bolster the ethos of Reagan's position, President of the United States. Wiesel begins by expressing admiration for the great achievements of the American people , however, he quickly transitions to nearly exclusively referring to the head of state himself, throughout the address. The effect is a shift in credit for all these deeds to the president, and effectively personifies him as a representative of American values, "I know of your commitment to humanity, Mr. President". While it may seem like he is buttering Reagan up, he's not. What Wiesel is really doing is holding him accountable for his decision. Showered in praise and punted up onto the moral high ground, the president is now forced to reconcile this visit with the values of the nation, rather than political objectives. What Wiesel has done is trapped him, and now he presses his advantage, using calculated diction to ensure this is no wriggling out of this, "The issue here is not politics, but good and evil. And we must never confuse them." Now, if Reagan follows through with the visit after hearing this speech, not only does he looks insensitive, disrespectful, and opposed to the values Wiesel has
vehemently thanked him for displaying, he tars the American people with the same brush. Now, the only honorable, viable, humanitarian option for the President is cancellation.
Wiesel appeals to logos, ethos, and pathos in Night. The reader’s logic is not so much directly appealed to, but indirectly the description of the events causes the reader to...
'With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.' In the delivery of Lincoln's 'Second Inaugural,' many were inspired by this uplifting and keen speech. It had been a long war, and Lincoln was concerned about the destruction that had taken place. Worn-out from seeing families torn apart and friendships eradicated, he interpreted his inaugural address. It was March of 1865, and the war, he believed, must come to an end before it was too late. The annihilation that had taken place was tragic, and Lincoln brawled for a closure. The 'Second Inaugural' was very influential, formal, and emotional.
Speeches are given for a purpose. Whether it is for persuasion, or education, or even entertainment, they all target certain parts of people’s minds. This speech, The Perils of Indifference, was given by Elie Wiesel with intention to persuade his audience that indifference is the downfall of humanity, and also to educate his audience about his conclusions about the Holocaust and the corresponding events. He was very successful in achieving those goals. Not only was the audience enlightened, but also President Bill Clinton, and the First Lady, Hillary Clinton, themselves were deeply touched by Wiesel’s words.
Along with rhetorical appeals, Wiesel also uses many rhetorical devices such as parallelism and anaphora. Wiesel depicts parallelism when he says, “to fight fascism, to fight dictatorship, to fight Hitler” (Wiesel lines 103-104). The parallelism and anaphora, in the quote, provide emphasis on the discrimination and abuse that has taken place around the world. Repeating the same initial phrase shows the significance of the words Wiesel is speaking. Wiesel mentions the victims of this extreme tragedy when he states,” for the children in the world, for the homeless for the victims of injustice, the victims of destiny and society.” (Wiesel lines 17-19). This use of anaphora and parallelism emphasize the amount of people the Holocaust has affected and impacted. The parallelism being used adds value to his opinions and balances the list of people Wiesel is making in his speech.
We Shall Overcome Rhetorical Analyses Throughout the history of the United States, racial discrimination has always been around our society. Many civil rights movements and laws have helped to minimize the amount of discrimination towards every single citizen, but discrimination is something that will not ever disappear. On March 15, 1965, Lyndon Baines Johnson gave a speech that pointed out the racial injustice and human rights problems of America in Washington D.C. He wanted every citizen of the United States to support his ideas to overcome and solve the racial injustice problems as a nation. Throughout the speech, Lyndon Johnson used several rhetorical concepts to persuade the audience.
In “The Perils of Indifference” Elie Wiesel uses several techniques to get his point across. Three of them in the speech are Ethos, Repetition, and Pathos. He uses a combination of the three elements throughout the paragraphs of his speech to attract the readers. The combination of these elements help draw the reader’s emotions and interest towards his subject. He focuses on word choice that would pertain to his audience’s level of vocabulary.
In April, 1945, Elie Wiesel was liberated from the Buchenwald concentration camp after struggling with hunger, beatings, losing his entire family, and narrowly escaping death himself. He at first remained silent about his experiences, because it was too hard to relive them. However, eventually he spoke up, knowing it was his duty not to let the world forget the tragedies resulting from their silence. He wrote Night, a memoir of his and his family’s experience, and began using his freedom to spread the word about what had happened and hopefully prevent it from happening again. In 1999, he was invited to speak at the Millennium Lectures, in front of the president, first lady, and other important governmental figures,. In his speech, “The Perils of Indifference”, he uses rhetoric devices to get emotional responses and to connect with the audience. He wants to create awareness of the dangers of indifference and show how there needs to be change. His speech eloquently calls out the government for their lack of response during the Holocaust, and warns against continued disregard for the struggles of others. He sees indifference as being the ally of the enemy, and without compassion there is no hope for the
Four and a half months after the Union defeated the Confederacy at the Battle of Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863. He gave the Union soldiers a new perspective on the war and a reason to fight in the Civil War. Before the address, the Civil War was based on states’ rights. Lincoln’s speech has the essence of America and the ideals that were instilled in the Declaration of Independence by the Founders. The sixteenth president of the United States was capable of using his speech to turn a war on states’ rights to a war on slavery and upholding the principles that America was founded upon. By turning the Civil War into a war about slavery he effortlessly ensured that no foreign country would recognize the South as an independent nation, ensuring Union success in the war. In his speech, Lincoln used the rhetorical devices of juxtaposition, repetition, and parallelism, to touch the hearts of its listeners.
President Obama’s Inaugural Speech: Rhetorical Analysis. Barrack Obama’s inauguration speech successfully accomplished his goal by using rhetoric to ensure our nation that we will be in safe hands. The speech is similar to ideas obtained from the founding documents and Martin Luther King’s speech to establish ‘our’ goal to get together and take some action on the problems our country is now facing. As President Barack Obama starts his speech, he keeps himself from using ‘me’, ‘myself’, and ‘I’ and replacing it with ‘we’, ‘us’, and ‘together’ to achieve his ethos.
It takes a certain kind of voice to connect an audience to a story, and Wiesel was able to gain that voice from the relationship he carried
Mr. Wiesel’s speech had a singular quote that stands out to many and it is: “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” This statement relates to many parts of the speech with the help of his word choice and use of rhetorical devices. His speech was based on people not staying silent in situations where they should speak out and help people who can’t do it for themselves. Elie Wiesel’s speech has helped many people be able to help the victims and tormented people by helping them not stay quiet, and instead take
Some say a picture is worth a thousand words, others say that language has power. When Elie Wiesel wrote his memoirs regarding his experience with his Holocaust, he had to “conjure up other verbs, other images, other silent cries” (Wiesel, pg. ix). Throughout this book, the imagery used leaves no question in the reader’s mind about the horrors that this man experienced. He did not have to create a new language, but he did combine aspects of our current language that are not often combined. His word choice and use of subtle description made his message in this book clearer than any picture ever could.
As the speech, more forwards with the issue of Indifference, Wiesel states more personal experience of how indifference split his community to represent addition proof of the negative side of indifference to gain credibility. Nevertheless, he hypothesized that if the nation knew what was having the would have intervene as soon as possible therefore we reach a state when he had proclaimed that if only Americans had bomb those railways just once, they all could have been saved. Here Wiesel body movements turned to a throw down fist as the sense of a tone change appears as disappointed. This Historical fact that lead to the body movement was use to symbolize that all the Americans look over anything that affects them and not others. Wiesel suddenly mentions Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his actions towards this
Would it be wrong if someone were to watch a bank robbery and not call any type of authority to stop the crime from going any further? Yes, as the people around that are taking no action to stop it would be endangering other people's lives. Elie Wiesel, tells his story of the atrocities that have happened throughout his life that have taken place in concentration camps in World War II. The “Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech” describes what Wiesel thinks of as a violation of human rights in the concentration camp. Taking no action to something that is a crime or to something morally wrong is not what should be approved by this society.
President Obama’s Address to the nation was presented on January 5, 2016. His speech was shown on all of the major network stations. The main goal of his speech was to get the point across to the nation about the increasing problem of gun use. His speech really focused on the issue of gun control and if it would benefit the country. Overall, the biggest idea of his Address was that gun control is a large issue in the United States. The way to prevent deaths caused by firearms can be prevented in other ways than taking peoples guns away. The examples brought up in this Address really stood out to me. The use of personal, national, and global examples really made his speech stronger on the topic of effectiveness.