Destiny Ornelas

Mr. Soeth

English 3AP

Febuary 2, 2011

REHUGO Analysis: History – Speech

A.   A.Elie Wiesel delivers his speech, “The Perils of Indifference,” on April 12, 1999 in regards to the results of indifference in the past century.

B.   B.   Being a victim of the Holocaust, Elie uses his own experiences to show the results of indifference. He points out how the world knew of the cruel doings of Hitler and his army yet still did nothing about it. He tells how you cant be a bystander to hatred and cruelty and not take some responsibility for it. “Why did some of America's largest corporations continue to do business with Hitler's Germany until 1942? It has been suggested, and it was documented, that the Wehrmacht could not have conducted its invasion of France without oil obtained from American sources”. Elie Wiesel now wants the future generations to not be so indifferent in situations that are going on around the world.

C.      C.Elie Wiesel does an outstanding job at effectively showing how indifference should no longer go on around the world. He explains and gives examples from history to his audience about how indifference is a sin and a punishment. He tells how looking away and ignoring the victims’ cries for help is ultimely “inhuman and it only “benefits the aggressor” because it allows them to get away with their “crimes against humanity”. He tells how the onlookers are just as responsible cause they allow the crimes to go on without thinking of the victims. He summarizes it with the question “ Does it mean we have learned from the past?” to leave his audience thinking about if we are ready to change the way we are. 

D.     D.Elie Wiesel alludes to the holocaust and the liberation of Jewish people all throughout the speech to develop his credibility. He also uses allusion by referring to numerous wars, genocides and assassinations such as World War one and World War two, past civil wars, the assassinations of Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr., and the Holocaust and Rwanda. He does this to exemplify indifference that has happened throughout the past century’s by telling how terrible things have happened in the world and everyone knew yet no one tried to stop it. After explaining to his audience how the world has been indifferent to each other he uses rhetorical strategy by asking numerous questions such as “Does it mean that we have learned from the past?” to engage his readers in thinking about if we truly have learned from our past mistakes in order to make the future a better one.