The Perils of Indifference

RA Practice: The Perils of Indifference Directions: Identify Wiesel’s argument and purpose. 1. Author’s Argument: As a new century approaches, we should reflect upon our past mistakes of being cruel, insensitive, and indifferent to injustices happening across the world and change ourselves to improve and be more compassionate people in order to stand up for equality and natural rights, standing up against injustice and human suffering, helping those who are victimized, and ultimately making the world have a better standard of living and protections for every human being. 2. Author’s Purpose: To convince people to care of themselves and the children of the future generations by learning from our past mistakes such as the Holocaust and improving and changing ourselves for the better to make ourselves and society as a whole more compassionate and advanced in general and to also convince society to be less indifferent, more humane, and more compassionate to fellow human beings by being more aware and sensitive of injustices and refusing to be complacent and neutral to these injustices and cruel actions such as the deportation and the terrorization of children and their parents across the world in order to discourage dictators and cruel people from doing these injustices ever again Then, respond to the following prompt with a Rhetorical Analysis thesis statement and TWO body paragraphs in support of it. How does Wiesel persuade his audience of his argument? Please double space your response and use 12-pt Times New Roman font. Because Elie Wiesel’s ultimate purpose is to persuade world leaders and bystanders to injustices across the world that they should reflect on past mistakes of the human race by being indifferent to human suffering and injustice and improve themselves to make the world more compassionate as the 21st century approaches, he appeals to the audience’s sense of sympathy and guilt by using hypopharas to question the audience on whether they can truly understand what is happening across the world in terms of human suffering. In addition, Wiesel also builds integrity and reputation as a social activist and leader by reminding his audience of the experiences he faced during the Holocaust and elaborates on how indifference causes human suffering as the 21st century approaches. Furthermore, Wiesel appeals to the audience’s sense of guilt once again but through the use of parallelism to emphasize the significant impact indifference has on victims of injustices. In the 22nd paragraph of the passage, Wiesel creates an emotional relationship with the audience by making the audience question themselves on if they can truly understand and realize what human suffering is happening across the world through the use of hypophora. For example, Wiesel says, “Do we hear their pleas? Do we feel their pain, their agony?” Wiesel’s words here are significant as he makes the audience feel guilty by making them question if they realize and understand the level of human suffering that is occurring across the Earth. This makes the audience feel sympathetic and emotional towards the people who are suffering while they remain silent and indifferent to the injustices that are occurring across the globe which develops an emotional connection between Wiesel and his audience as Wiesel’s words can evoke guilt and sympathy out of the audience. Wiesel’s ability to make the audience feel guilty and sympathetic towards people who suffer from injustices and crimes happening in the world helps him achieve his ultimate purpose of convincing the audience to stand up against injustices across the world and improve themselves by becoming more compassionate and less indifferent to inhumane actions and crimes that occur around them by making them feel guilty for not helping out children and people in general who were suffering and being killed from inhumane actions and making them realize that they have the ability to stand up against injustices and crimes and give the audience incentives and motivation to make the world a better and equal place for all to live in harmoniously. In the 7th paragraph of the passage, Wiesel creates a trusting relationship with the audience by building his integrity and reputation as a social activist and leader by reminding his audience of the experiences he faced during the Holocaust and elaborates on how indifference causes human suffering as the 21st century approaches through the use of personal anecdotes and a sorrow tone. For example, Wiesel says, “Wrapped in their torn blankets, they would sit or lie on the ground, staring vacantly into space, unaware of who or where they were -strangers to their surroundings. They no longer felt pain, hunger, thirst. They feared nothing. They felt nothing.” Wiesel’s words here are significant as he makes the audience feel that he is trustworthy and credible in what he says as they learn about how Wiesel personally dealt with and experienced indifference towards human injustice through listening to his personal anecdotes. In addition, Wiesel’s sorrow tone makes the situation of indifference and his anecdotes more serious, which allows the audience to realize that injustices and inhumane crimes are problems that are deeply impacting like Wiesel because of them being indifferent to the crimes happening everywhere. Through understanding Wiesel’s personal anecdotes combined with his sorrow tone, there is trust built between Wiesel and his audience which will make the audience feel guilty for not helping the people who are suffering while they remain silent and indifferent to the injustices that are occurring across the globe. Not to mention, they will also understand what Wiesel went through, through his personal anecdotes about enduring human suffering caused by indifference, which develops a trusting, emotionally sympathizing, and guilt-ridden connection between Wiesel and his audience. Wiesel’s words make his audience trust and sympathize with him, allowing them to be more inclined to agree with him in stopping indifference to human injustices. In addition, Wiesel helps his audience truly understand how people are suffering as they learn about it from his personal perspective. Wiesel’s ability to make the audience believe his words and understand that there are people who suffer from injustices and crimes across the entire world helps him achieve his ultimate purpose of convincing the audience to stand up against injustices across the world and improve themselves by becoming more compassionate and less indifferent to inhumane actions and crimes that occur around them by making them understand that children and people in general suffering from indifference is a serious and real situation that needs to be addressed in the world as Wiesel suffered from injustices himself giving him credibility. This makes the audience realize that there are injustices and crimes happening all over the world while people choose to be indifferent and complacent in inhumane actions as Wiesel went through that exact experience himself as a young person and tells his audience about it. This motivates Wiesel’s audience to strive to make the world a better and equal place for all to live in harmoniously by standing up against injustice and human suffering. In the 9th paragraph of the passage, Wiesel further strengthens the emotional relationship built between him and the audience by appealing to the audience’s sense of guilt once again but through the use of parallelism to emphasize the significant impact indifference has on victims of injustice. For example, Wiesel says, “Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response. Indifference is not a beginning; it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim”. Wiesel’s words here are significant as he makes the audience feel guilty once again but instead by emphasizing the significant and destructive potential of indifference to victims of injustice making the audience want to do something to stop victims of injustices from continuing to suffer. This emphasis and repetition of the word, “indifference”, as well as the parallelism of indifference in each of the phrases within the quote makes Wiesel’s audience focus their attention on that word and make them realize and truly understand the gravity of the situation they have allowed to happen and tolerated across the world by being indifferent to human suffering and malicious injustices. This further makes the audience feel sympathetic and guilty towards people who are suffering while they remain indifferent to the injustices that are occurring around the world which further strengthens the emotional bond between Wiesel and his audience as Wiesel’s words can evoke guilt and sympathy for the victims out of his audience. Wiesel’s ability to make the audience feel more guilty and sympathetic towards people who suffer from injustices and crimes happening around the world helps him further achieve his ultimate purpose of convincing the audience to stand up against injustices across the world and improve themselves by becoming more compassionate and less indifferent to inhumane actions and crimes that occur around them. In addition, Wiesel’s ability to make his audience feel guilty for not helping out children and people in general who were suffering and being killed from inhumane actions and makes them realize that it is within their moral responsibilities to stand up to injustices and inhumane crimes. Furthermore, Wiesel’s words also give the audience incentives and motivation to make the world more compassionate and caring so that everyone can harmoniously and peacefully coexist with each other as the 21st century approaches. 1. What changes did you make in your revision? Explain the changes in detail – include textual examples as necessary. I tried to break down my thesis statement into smaller chunks so that it flowed better and had better clarity. For example, instead of saying, “Because Elie Wiesel’s ultimate purpose is to persuade world leaders and bystanders to injustices across the world that they should reflect on past mistakes of the human race by being indifferent to human suffering and injustice and improve themselves to make the world more compassionate as the 21st century approaches, he appeals to the audience’s sense of sympathy and guilt by using hypopharas to question the audience on whether they can truly understand what is happening across the world in terms of human suffering and builds integrity and reputation as a social activist and leader by reminding his audience of the experiences he faced during the Holocaust and elaborates on how indifference causes human suffering as the 21st century approaches”, I separated the large paragraph into two sentences by starting a new sentence where it says “ builds integrity and reputation as a social activist and leader by reminding his audience of the experiences he faced during the Holocaust.” In addition, instead of using the words pathos and ethos I elaborated on how Wiesel specifically elicited the effects of pathos and ethos through his rhetorical techniques such as by mentioning how he used personal anecdotes and a sorrow tone to convey his message of convincing people to stop being indifferent to injustices. 2. Explain why you made the changes to the essay (i.e. how did those changes improve the essay?) Be specific! I made the changes to the essay because it would allow my thesis to be more clear and straightforward to understand and it would allow the reader to further understand how Wiesel is able to elicit the effects of pathos and ethos from the reader using personal anecdotes and a sorrow tone to build a trusting relationship between Wiesel and his audience. It would make my argument more specific and complex in terms of how Wiesel uses rhetorical strategies to strengthen his argument. 3. Use the AP Rhetorical Analysis Rubric to score your own essay. Explain using specific examples and terminology from the rubric. Thesis: 1 point: The thesis responds to the prompt rather than restating or rephrasing the prompt and clearly articulates a defensible thesis about the rhetorical choices the writer makes by saying Wiesel’s ultimate purpose is to persuade world leaders and bystanders to injustices across the world that they should reflect on past mistakes of the human race by being indifferent to human suffering and injustice and improve themselves to make the world more compassionate as the 21st century approaches and articulates about the rhetorical choices Wiesel makes such as by talking about how he uses hypohoras to question the audience and make them feel guilty, using personal anecdotes and a sorrow tone in order to build an emotional and trusting connection with his audience, and by using parallelism and repetition to emphasize indifference to make the audience feel guilty more. Evidence and Commentary: 3 points: The body paragraphs make textual references by using direct quotes such as “Do we hear their pleas? Do we feel their pain, their agony?”, “Wrapped in their torn blankets, they would sit or lie on the ground, staring vacantly into space, unaware of who or where they were -strangers to their surroundings. They no longer felt pain, hunger, thirst. They feared nothing. They felt nothing”, and “Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response. Indifference is not a beginning; it is an end. It provides commentary that explains the relationship between evidence and the thesis; however, commentary is uneven, limited, or incomplete such as by talking about how using hypohpras made the audience question themselves on whether they truly understand what people who suffer from injustices are going through making them feel guilty causing them to build an emotional connection with each other, using personal anecdotes and a sorrow tone to convey the seriousness of his message of being less indifferent to human suffering and building a trusting relationship with his audience which establishes his credibility, and also using parallelism and repetition to emphasize the significance of indifference to evoke guilt out the audience. However, it is limited as it doesn’t focus on the specific choices Wiesel makes to evoke an emotional reaction such as using specific words such as “plea”, “agony”, and “pain”. Sophistication: 0 points: It does not demonstrate sophistication of thought and/or a complex understanding of the rhetorical situation as it doesn’t explain the significance or relevance of the text’s purpose within a broader context. It only talks about the author’s purpose for the sake of his speech of convincing the audience to be more compassionate and less indifferent to injustices across the world and not within the context of the 21st century as a whole. It doesn’t make effective rhetorical choices that strengthen the force and impact of the student’s argument and merely just talks about the rhetorical choices the author makes such as using hypopharas, personal anecdotes, a sorrow tone, and parallelism. It doesn’t utilize a prose style that is especially vivid, persuasive, convincing, or appropriate to the student’s argument as the argument is very structured and formulaically written as it is structured in the form: thesis, topic sentence, evidence, analysis, and repeats rather than using a natural flow of speech.