Question

I remember: it happened yesterday, or eternities ago. A young Jewish boy discovered the Kingdom of Night. I remember his bewilderment, I remember his anguish. It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.

I remember he asked his father: "Can this be true? This is the twentieth century, not the Middle Ages. Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain silent?" And now the boy is turning to me. "Tell me," he asks, "what have you done with my future, what have you done with your life?" Elie Wiesel, Nobel Prize acceptance speech, 1986

Why does Wiesel talk about himself in the third person?
A. To give the audience facts and evidence that support his argument
B. To ask the audience members to consider what they would do in his situation
C. To focus the audience on the terrible experiences he had as a child
D. To answer a question that many people have asked him about

Answer 1

C. To focus the audience on the terrible experiences he had as a child

He tells the story in third person to make the things the character (of himself) went through resonate more with the audience. When they hear the terrible stories and then see that he is talking about himself, it helps them feel more emotion and more connection to him.

Answer 2

C. To focus the audience on the terrible experiences he had as a child.

Step-by-step explanation:

In this excerpt, even though Wiesel is talking in the third person, he is really talking about himself. We know this because the experiences he describes as belonging to the child are the same ones that we know he went through during the Holocaust. The author uses this unconventional narrative style in order to force the listeners to focus on the terrible experiences he had as a child and to reflect on the long journey he has had in order to get to where he is now.