Raven Harris

Bashford

Honors English 9- Period 2

15 February 2017

In his speech, Elie Weisel employs the use of idioms and personification to ensure the

audience's’ understanding of the way the war shaped him and many others. For instance, an

idiom is evident in “ They felt nothing. They feared nothing. They were dead and did not know

it” (Weisel 2). By incorporating an idiom in this way, Elie conveys that the Holocaust shaped

people to where they were the walking dead. They portrayed no emotions, and were literally

dead inside from the pain, hunger, thirst, and torture they went through. Elie also uses

personification, and that is obvious when he states “ ...indifference is always the friend of the

enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never the victim”(Weisel 2). By incorporating

personification in this way, Elie conveys that indifference always made people feel alone and

forgotten. He claims that indifference isn’t a beginning it’s an end and that it’s is a punishment

for those receiving it. Elie does a fantastic job at describing how the Holocaust and WWII had

changed people, and he was carried with profound fear, and extraordinary hope for the new

millennium.