History REHUGO :]

Joey Bennett
Mr. Soeth
Period 2
February 2 2011

REHUGO Analysis: History – Speech

A. Elie Wiesel gave his speech "The Perils of Indifference" in Washington D.C. in 1999.

B. In the speech, Wiesel identifies certain people of interest then reveals the day of the speech was the fifty-fourth anniversary for the end of World War II. He structures the speech with the fact that he was a victim of the Holocaust, and that he, along with many other Jews, are grateful to their saviors.

C. Wiesel takes the most of his first half of the speech to have an in-depth representation of the word indifference. He explains how indifference is worse than anger, just by the mere fact that if a human cannot show sympathy for another human, then there is no hope for us. He uses indifference to show that us, as the human race, have progressed to abolish indifference from allowing things like the Holocaust to occur once more. His speech begins to support many comparable subjects today, such as the indifference towards homosexuals, teen suicide, and the simple situations we face everyday. He goes to the lengths of describing indifference as "not only a sin, it is a punishment." His strong feelings towards indifference become clear throughout the speech, he makes the audience sure to be aware of indifference and it's meaning, to keep it from happening again.


D.
a). Wiesel uses the rhetorical strategy of definition in paragraph five when he states, "What is indifference? Etymologically, the word means "no difference."" He puts the rhetorical question and definition in a position that will help maneuver his way through the speech and further clarify to the audience, what the word indifference means.
b). Wiesel also uses an allusion to help create himself as a reliable speaker, for example in paragraph four, "These failures have cast a dark shadow over humanity: two World Wars, countless civil wars, the senseless chain of assassinations (Gandhi, the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, Sadat, Rabin), bloodbaths in Cambodia and Algeria, India and Pakistan, Ireland and Rwanda, Eritrea and Ethiopia, Sarajevo and Kosovo; the inhumanity in the gulag and the tragedy of Hiroshima." He states these many 'failures' as to show that humans do make mistakes, and this further supports his future statements that imply we can change the future by not making the mistakes of the past.

MLA citation:
Wiesel, Elie. "The Perils of Indifference." Millenium Lectures. East Room of the White House, Washington D.C. 22 Apr. 1999. Speech.