Tej Johnson

Mrs. Shutt
Pre-AP English 9
4 March 2016

CIA #4 Speech Analysis

One of the most honorable, if not the most honorable award, is the Nobel Peace
Prize. Being awarded only 96 times, it is a prestigious honor to be given. One of those
few people to ever receive this was Elie Wiesel, a survivor of the holocaust. His
acceptance speech focused on the central idea that Inhumane acts should be spoken
against He did this by using the appeals ethos and pathos and by also using devices
such as anaphoras and diction.
The ethos appeal is evident throughout the first part of the speech. One such
example is I remember: it happened yesterday, or eternities ago. (paragraph 4). By
using the first person view while talking about the discrimination and suffering that took
place during the holocaust, Wiesel is saying that he was there during the events. He is
credible to talking about the events because of the fact that he was actually there and
endured the torturous affairs that occurred. Next, Wiesel uses the pathos appeal
towards the end of his speech. An example of this is when he says, And the I explain to
him how naive we were, that the world did know and remained silent. (paragraph 7). He
said this when a little boy asked him about the holocaust wondering how people could
remain muted when they had knowledge of the terrible things happening to the jewish
people. By including this sentence, Wiesel evokes emotion from the audience to get his
message, people need to interfere with wrongdoings and the suffering of people,
across.
The anaphora is best used in paragraph 4 where Wiesel continuously uses the
phrase, I remember at the start of his sentences. This usage allows Wiesel to further
show that the holocaust events are forever a part of him which connects to ethos and
pathos. His diction in the speech was intentionally focused on connecting with the
audience through emotion to persuade them to take action in situations where people
are persecuted for race, gender, religion, or political views. He uses words such as
tormented, jeopardy, and endangered to really try and make them feel more apt to
speak out against wrongfulness. This also further supplements the pathos appeal in the
speech.
Not a lot of people get the opportunity to receive the Nobel Peace Prize and Elie
Wiesel promised to himself that he would never be silent in immoral circumstances
because of what he went through in the holocaust. With the use of ethos, pathos,
anaphora, and diction, Wiesel spoke to the people while he was accepting his peace
prize, about how they should speak and act against unjust actions and how staying

silent doesnt help. He endured a lot but managed to stay positive, win the Nobel Prize,
and pass his word of speaking out on to countless people.