Hope, Despair and Memory: What's Up With the Closing Lines?
Hope, Despair and Memory: What's Up With the Closing Lines?
Mankind must remember that peace is not God's gift to his creatures, it is our gift to each other. (29, 9)
This, folks, is a classic call to action. And what better action could you be called to do than the action of…being fundamentally decent and peaceful? (Sounds good to us, tbh.)
Many speeches trying to move an audience to do something usually wrap up with actually asking them directly to do said thing. Elie Wiesel is no different here. Also, we think it's a nice touch that he didn't just ask people to go out and pursue peace, but asks them to remember the gift of peace. That underlines once again the main theme of the speech: memory.