Elie Wiesel Night Analysis

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Failure to recognize an issue leads to the failure to take action against it. Today, one in ten children are trapped in child labor, but countless people drastically underestimate that number, resulting in little effort to solve the problem. Reports on child labor, Wiesel’s Nobel Prize speech and memoir, Night, demonstrate how the world allows injustices to persist when they are unknown to them. These issues also reveal that words can effectively shape public perception by fighting misconceptions and appealing to one’s emotions, which can lead to legal reforms and changes in societal norms. There is a lack of awareness in society regarding certain issues, making them seem irrelevant. While most people know of child labor around the world, there …show more content…
Some states have even repealed laws against underage labor because they do not see a need for laws that prevent an irrelevant injustice. Citizens allow this because they too do not realize the problem and involuntarily allow the injustice to continue. In Wiesel’s Nobel Prize speech, he explains how “silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented” (Source B). Remaining silent about the suffering of child laborers causes people’s ignorance or indifference towards the issue by downplaying it. As a result, they do not actively fight it, and children continue to work, often in dangerous conditions, instead of attending school. The lack of knowledge about injustices like child labor leads to a lack of action against it, but first-hand accounts can bring attention to the problem. Words can influence people’s perspectives by affecting them emotionally. In 1912, a teenage Italian immigrant named, Camella Teoli, testified before Congress about her battle against child labor. She recounted illegally working at a mill as an underage minor, and how “a portion of her scalp had been torn off” when her hair got stuck in a machine (Source