Rhetorical Analysis Of The Perils Of Indifference

On April 12, 1999, Elie Wiesel gave a speech titled, “The Perils of Indifference” in the White House to share his experience during the Holocaust during World War 2. Wiesel and his family members were forced to live in Auschwitz extermination camp. During these times, he faced various hardships and struggles until he was rescued. In this speech, Wiesel gave an effective speech by using various rhetorical strategies to convey his personal beliefs on the world and how much it has affected him. To begin, Wiesel uses credibility and personal experiences to capture the audience’s attention to gain trust from his audience. In the first two paragraphs, he addresses himself in third person, such as “... he remembers”, then shifted to first person in the third paragraphs to tell the audience that he was the young Jewish boy who was rescued by American soldiers (“... I stand before you”). By expressing his experience, the audience can now trust and believe in what he has to say. This is what makes his speech impactful. Next, Wiesel’s appeal to emotion contributed to the effectiveness of his speech. His experience also had an emotional toll on him, which is why he used this in his message. The use of rhetorical questions such as, “Do we hear their pleas? Do we feel their pain, their agony?” (paragraph …show more content…
By using common sense and beliefs, his message was effective. In paragraph 26, he says “Every minute one of them dies of disease, violence, famine. Some of them-- so many of them-- could be saved”. He believes that if people did their part and chose to help, children could have had another chance at life. Another use of logos was in the fifth paragraph of his speech which states that the failures of society results in a “dark shadow over humanity”. He believes that the assassination of multiple political figures, world wars, and conflicts between countries resulted in the violence in the