One’s past affects the way one views unjust behavior that will continue to occur in today's society. In “Hope, Despair, and Memory” Ellie Wiesel repeats, “it would be enough” to express his frustration that words are not “enough” to explain the time of hate he lived through. Wiesel’s point of view differs from Solzhenitsyn oration in “One Word of Truth Outweighs the World” because Solzhenitsyn believes lying and violence are inseparable. However, Wiesel and Solzhenitsyn compare in that they are both frustrated with our society not learning from past mistakes. In “Children Without Pity” by Nancy Traver, her work contrasts to Wiesel’s oration because she demonstrates how humanity continues to hurt each other. Traver, Solzhenitsyn, and Wiesel all choose to cope with injustice differently or in a …show more content…
Wiesel's repetition, relates to when Solzhenitsyn states, "whether for its cowardly humiliation or for its self-satisfied weakness, or the light headed escapades of the young," he demonstrates the connection between the passages because we don't learn from our past mistakes (Solzhenitsyn 161). Clearly, Solzhenitsyn believes no one has courage to make a stand to demand change or care for others besides their own or themselves in today’s society to stop injustice. Both orators express their frustration to their audience of how our present society must remember the past, so acts of injustice do not repeat in the future. “Whoever has announced violence as his method must inexorably choose lying as his principal” illustrates if one chooses lying; one also chooses violence, according to “One Word of Truth Outweighs the World.” In addition, Solzhenitsyn reveals in his oration violence continues to grow as long as one continues to lie, but the truth can destroy violence to help prevent the repetition of history and past mistakes. Both authors uncover how they have had a troubled past and do not want humanity to go through what they went
Irish Playwright, George Bernard Shaw, once said, “The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.” Inhumanity is mankind’s worse attribute. Every so often, ordinary humans are driven to the point were they have no choice but to think of themselves. One of the most famous example used today is the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night demonstrates how fear is a debilitating force that causes people to lose sight of who they once were. After being forced into concentration camps, Elie was rudely awakened into reality. Traumatizing incidents such as Nazi persecution or even the mistreatment among fellow prisoners pushed Elie to realize the cruelty around him; Or even the wickedness Elie himself is capable of doing. This resulted in the loss of faith, innocence, and the close bonds with others.
Injustice still occurs in today’s society. In “Hope, Despair, and Memory” Ellie Wiesel repeats, “it would be enough” to express his frustration in how humanity has not changed. Wiesel’s point of view differs from Solzhenitsyn oration in “One Word of Truth Outweighs the World” because Solzhenitsyn believes lying and violence are inseparable. However, Wiesel and Solzhenitsyn are similar in that they are both frustrated with our society not learning from past mistakes.
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.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book, Tender is the Night, Fitzgerald writes “He was so terrible that he was no longer terrible, only dehumanized”. This idea of how people could become almost unimaginably cruel due to dehumanization corresponds with the Jews experience in the Holocaust. The Holocaust was the ruthless massacre of Jewish people, and other people who were consider to be vermin to the predetermined Aryan race in the 1940s. One holocaust survivor and victim was Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize winner and author of Night. Wiesel was one of the countless people to go through the horrors of the concentration camps, which dehumanized people down to their animalistic nature, an echo of their previous selves. Dehumanization worsens over time in Night because of how the Jews treated each other, and how Elie changed physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Each and every one of us sees the world in a different light than each other. These differences in perception are not completely random. Everyone’s perception of the world around us is affected by certain factors. Both the autobiographical memoir, Night, by Elie Wiesel, and the poem, “We grow accustomed to the Dark,” by Emily Dickinson, demonstrate a magnitude of factors affecting how we see the world. Night depicts Wiesel’s journey throughout the Holocaust, while “We grow accustomed to the Dark” exhibits our journeys when encountering new obstacles. Based on the universal concept of “How We See Things,” two factors that affect our perception of the world around us are our upbringings and our experiences when facing new obstacles due to the
Authors sometimes refer to their past experiences to help cope with the exposure to these traumatic events. In his novel Night, Elie Wiesel recalls the devastating and horrendous events of the Holocaust, one of the world’s highest points for man’s inhumanity towards man, brutality, and cruel treatment, specifically towards the Jewish Religion. His account takes place from 1944-1945 in Germany while beginning at the height of the Holocaust and ending with the last years of World War II. The reader will discover through this novel that cruelty is exemplified all throughout Wiesel's, along with the other nine million Jews’, experiences in the inhumane concentration camps that are sometimes referred to as “death factories.”
Oppression is the systematic method of prolonged cruelty and unjust treatment, often intended for those who are deemed “different” by a hierarchical society. It’s a basis that can be found in the plot of a fictional movie or novel, but most importantly, it’s an aspect of both past and modern life that has affected multiple nations. Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, is a humanitarian who embodies the personal experiences of what being oppressed feels like – how it itches at one’s skin like the hatred and stares directed at them. The reason he is so important is because of his stories; what he has seen. The insight and intelligence he has brought forth further educates those who had previously accepted the world with their eyes closed.
The best teachers have the capabilities to teach from first hand experience. In his memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel conveys his grueling childhood experiences of survival to an audience that would otherwise be left unknown to the full terrors of the Holocaust. Night discloses mental and physical torture of the concentration camps; this harsh treatment forced Elie to survive rather than live. His expert use of literary devices allowed Wiesel to grasp readers by the hand and theatrically display to what extent the stress of survival can change an individual’s morals. Through foreshadowing, symbolism, and repetition, Wiesel’s tale proves that the innate dark quality of survival can take over an individual.
By repeating the phrase “I remember”, he is conveying the impact the Holocaust had on him to where as even to this day he vividly remembers as if “it happened yesterday or eternities ago.” Wiesel also uses repetition when repeating the phrase “I have tried.” He wants to let the young boy, which is Wiesel’s younger self, know that he has not forgotten, and is fighting “to keep memory alive” by fighting “those who would forget.” This helps to further illustrate his purpose of persuading the audience to not stay silent and to join him in his fight against “the oppressor” by typifying the survivors, their children, and Jewish people everywhere when he identifies that he remembers that horrific time period and by really emphasizing how important it is to remember and
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.
He uses the appeal to authority by showing that he lived through great suffering in World War Two as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp where he suffered greatly and experienced the indifference shown by the world first-hand. He then used the appeal to facts by first defining the word “indifference,” and then stating the facts of several events that took place showing the lack of immediate concern that was shown by the United States towards the prisoners when the United States discovered what the Nazis were doing. Wiesel also uses the appeal to emotion while he laces his entire speech with many different emotionally charged words. He tries to elicit a strong emotional response from the audience so as to move them towards action against indifference. His goal can still be achieved today if each person who reads his speech was to actively see the suffering that others experience and work ease it to the best of their ability. This would result in a more unified community, nation, and world culture where those suffering would no longer feel alone and unimportant but instead they would be acknowledged and
How can people overlook such a horrible event happening, and not do anything about it? This paper will follow a young man, Elie Wiesel, whose terrifying journey was carried on throughout the Holocaust. Wiesel uses imagery and vividly describes many of the horrific sights he saw at the camp when he was younger, to establish and describe the tones fear, shock, and gloom (darkness).
“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed…“(Wiesel 32) Livia-Bitton Jackson wrote a novel based on her personal experience, I Have Lived a Thousand Years. Elli was a Holocaust victim and her only companion was her mother. Together they fought for hunger, mistreatment and more. By examining the themes carefully, the audience could comprehend how the author had a purpose when she wrote this novel. In addition, by seeing each theme, the audience could see what the author was attacking, and why. By illustrating a sense of the plight of millions of Holocaust victims, Livia-Bitton Jackson explores the powerful themes of one’s will to survive, faith, and racism.
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.
Throughout the memoir, Wiesel demonstrates how oppression and dehumanization can affect one’s identity by describing the actions of the Nazis and how it changed the Jewish people’s outlook on life. Wiesel’s identity transformed dramatically throughout the narrative. “How old he had grown the night before! His body was completely twisted, shriveled up into itself. His eyes were petrified, his lips withered, decayed.