In his speech The Perils of Indifference, Elie Wiesel, a man of Jewish descent who lived
through the holocaust, adjured President Bill Clinton, along with his wife Hillary Clinton and a
joint session of congress. Throughout the piece Wiesel stuck to a single theme with a grim
determination born of experience: to constantly be aware of and fight evil. The speech reads as a
piece of persuasion, dedicated to convincing both the legislative and executive branches of the
United States’ government not to get comfortable in the relative peace that marked the Clinton
years in the white house. Wiesel’s perspective was forged in the concentration camps of Nazi
Germany, and he speaks as one who has known the evil he now speaks out against. …show more content…
The weakest rhetorical technique present within Wiesel’s speech is his use of examples.
Wiesel relates his experience in a concentration camp in World War II as an example of a time
when a great leader, United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was doing great
work, freeing the territory held by Nazi Germany, committed an unimaginable oversight by not
doing the simple task of bombing the rail lines leading into the concentration camps. This,
Wiesel explains, would have been a tremendous blow to the Germans’ ability to continue their
policy of mass incarceration and slaughter of Jews. Further, President Roosevelt turned away a
refugee ship filled with Jewish Europeans when it arrived on US soil. Again, a great leader and
good man turned a blind eye to the easily mitigated suffering of thousands. Especially given the
presence of President Clinton in the audience, this was a solid rhetorical choice, and effective as
a persuasion technique.
Stronger than his use of examples in his speech is Wiesel’s use of pathos. Throughout the
carefully created speech the old man calls on heart-wrenching imagery: Kristallnacht, …show more content…
These things
produce many strong and positive emotions within the listener, even as the earlier list compels
darkness within them. An effective use of pathos has the power both to elevate and depress the
human emotion, and this amazing series of images draws firmly and strongly on the best and
strongest of pathos as a persuasion technique.
The most powerful of Wiesel’s persuasion techniques, however, is that of questions.
Throughout his most intense tale of the darkness of Nazism and the failures of President
Roosevelt Wiesel expresses his disbelief as a series of questions, but his most powerful use of
the technique is during the climax of his speech where he delivers a heartrending string of
questions, opening with “Has the human being become less indifferent and more human?” and
“Does it mean that society has changed?” and closing with “What about the Children?” and “Do
we feel their pain, their agony?”. The overall effect of these questions is to plunge the reader into
doubt, and in that state of doubt Wiesel effectively drags the listener up to a hopeful state of
affairs, where the Human race doubtless has overcome the dark history brought up by the
through the holocaust, adjured President Bill Clinton, along with his wife Hillary Clinton and a
joint session of congress. Throughout the piece Wiesel stuck to a single theme with a grim
determination born of experience: to constantly be aware of and fight evil. The speech reads as a
piece of persuasion, dedicated to convincing both the legislative and executive branches of the
United States’ government not to get comfortable in the relative peace that marked the Clinton
years in the white house. Wiesel’s perspective was forged in the concentration camps of Nazi
Germany, and he speaks as one who has known the evil he now speaks out against. …show more content…
The weakest rhetorical technique present within Wiesel’s speech is his use of examples.
Wiesel relates his experience in a concentration camp in World War II as an example of a time
when a great leader, United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was doing great
work, freeing the territory held by Nazi Germany, committed an unimaginable oversight by not
doing the simple task of bombing the rail lines leading into the concentration camps. This,
Wiesel explains, would have been a tremendous blow to the Germans’ ability to continue their
policy of mass incarceration and slaughter of Jews. Further, President Roosevelt turned away a
refugee ship filled with Jewish Europeans when it arrived on US soil. Again, a great leader and
good man turned a blind eye to the easily mitigated suffering of thousands. Especially given the
presence of President Clinton in the audience, this was a solid rhetorical choice, and effective as
a persuasion technique.
Stronger than his use of examples in his speech is Wiesel’s use of pathos. Throughout the
carefully created speech the old man calls on heart-wrenching imagery: Kristallnacht, …show more content…
These things
produce many strong and positive emotions within the listener, even as the earlier list compels
darkness within them. An effective use of pathos has the power both to elevate and depress the
human emotion, and this amazing series of images draws firmly and strongly on the best and
strongest of pathos as a persuasion technique.
The most powerful of Wiesel’s persuasion techniques, however, is that of questions.
Throughout his most intense tale of the darkness of Nazism and the failures of President
Roosevelt Wiesel expresses his disbelief as a series of questions, but his most powerful use of
the technique is during the climax of his speech where he delivers a heartrending string of
questions, opening with “Has the human being become less indifferent and more human?” and
“Does it mean that society has changed?” and closing with “What about the Children?” and “Do
we feel their pain, their agony?”. The overall effect of these questions is to plunge the reader into
doubt, and in that state of doubt Wiesel effectively drags the listener up to a hopeful state of
affairs, where the Human race doubtless has overcome the dark history brought up by the