Dr. King's Metaphor Of Uncashed Checks

Within this quote there are multiple metaphors that help bolden King’s thoughts: “crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination,” “island of poverty,” and “vast ocean of material prosperity.” These metaphors explain how it still felt nearly impossible to end discrimination, and how Negroes are on their own with no support. The use of the metaphors display a deeper and stronger meaning to the topics that King was passionate about. These rhetorical devices brought to the non-colored portion of the audience’s attention of how difficult the life of a Negro was and that freeing the slaves one hundred years ago was not enough.

King and X employed figurative language in their methods of persuading their audience. In King’s “I Have a Dream” speech he conveys the use of similes in the phrase, “We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream,” in order to illustrate the need for justice until all are equal. He stresses the need of discrimination to end and for justice to let all nondiscriminatory in society. He used the negativity of injustice and turned it into a positive of justice being endless water that roars through a mighty stream that will forever be flowing. X also used similes to describe that all “negroes” are in the same boat and all will get the same treatment from the white man in the phrase, “…you’re going to catch hell just like I am.” He emphasizes that all “negroes” whether educated or illiterate or wealthy or poor will gain the same result of the hell that is being brought upon the by the same man who happens to be white. Both Martin Luther King and Malcolm X felt the lack of acceptance and the treachery being brought upon them by the white man in their use of similes.

Throughout the letter King uses metaphors to influence his readers. Go back 55 years to the 1960’s everything was segregated from restaurant to water fountains. King uses this quote to explain how it feels to have to do things differently just because of your skin color; “I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say wait.”; King uses metaphors to compare segregation to the stinging of darts at the start of his paragraph. By using this metaphor he shows how much it hurts to be told you can not do something because you have a different skin tone. Another way King uses metaphors to affect his readers, is by showing real life examples; “When you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech

It is necessary to first understand King's arguments before delving into the actual analysis. King's main argument is that African-Americans are not free or equal according to the rights

The central claim of Dr. Kings argument is that, he felt as if Blacks were still classified as slaves. The emancipation proclamation was passed one hundred years prior, promised freedom and equal opportunity to all Americans that meant Blacks as well. That was supposed to be the end of slavery, yet Blacks were still forced to live under poor living conditions. Although they weren't actual slaves anymore, still Blacks were subjected to unethical treatment. Some of which were, being limited to resources such as education, good jobs, and good housing. They were segregated for those very reasons so that they could not persevere, in a country with next to no rights as an American citizen; due to the color of their skin and background. Dr. King

African Americans have undergone unimaginable hardships in this land and were powerless to effect change in the system with their vote. I find this to be great injustice. Another example of injustice in this reading is King’s arrest. He writes, “I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance, which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and deny citizens their First Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.” As King explains how a just law can become unjust through capricious or malicious application, I find myself confused by the situation. African American citizens are struggling for the equality America was founded on, and these people are being arrested for improper parading. After exhausting many other approaches, African Americans moved to peaceful protest and even that was stifled. I find myself asking where else were they to turn, how else could they effect change, and where is their justice? Would anyone have blamed Dr. King for being angry with his situation? I doubt it. King made a wise choice to remain optimistic, to address those who questioned his motives with reverence. In fact, he defines how he will respond to his critics in the opening paragraph of his letter: “I want to try to answer your statements in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.” This statement demonstrates King’s commitment to

One of the ways that Dr. King brought change was through his message of hope and optimism for the future, and his long, eloquent sentences that proved that he was a man of intelligence that should’ve been listened to. In Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech he makes clear his belief that racial equality can only be achieved by integration. This can be best describes when he states “I have a dream that one day in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right here in Alabama little black [African-Americans] boys and little black girls will be able to join hands with little white [Caucasian] boys and little white girls as sisters and brothers.” (King 5) Dr. King discusses how he believes that if the Caucasian

Early in his speech, he establishes the connection of the Negro people to American society, stating that “America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check that has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’” Essentially, society has set them up for failure, intentionally creating an environment in which it is impossible to succeed in. Much like the concept of “forty acres a mule,” Negros were deliberately placed in a position of guaranteed failure. When the slaves were freed, they were promised forty acres of land and a mule, but were given no tools to harvest the land. They requested help from other famers, but were swindled out of their land or given land which was implantable, effectively consigning them into being in the same position as they were when they were enslaved. However, King transitions away from a feeling of hopelessness to one of optimism, claiming that although society wants the Negros to feel oppressed, they refuse to believe that “there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of the nation.” They are aware that opportunity and liberty are not things of limited quantity, therefore they should be offered to everyone. The “bank of opportunity” is impossible to go bankrupt because there are unlimited funds, waiting to be distributed out to everyone. The metaphors King connects to the current

King contrasts just and unjust laws using words such as "uplift" and "degrade," "segregator" and "segregated," "superiority" and "inferiority," and "majority" and "minority" to create a clear distinctions between the two kinds of people. He also writes about how segregation swaps an "I-thou" relationship with an "I-it" relationship. King never directly mentions the two races as being the two groups represented by the pairs of contrasting words, but through his argument against unjust laws and the terminology he associates so strongly with the groups, King develops a relationship that suggests complete oppression of the blacks through domination by the whites. King carries this into his belief that a white person doing nothing about the issue of segregation is a white person opposing

Black people could not express themselves, have a better life, or have opportunities, same as white men. King had hit the nail on the head, no one could answer the question King was asking; Why is it that they, blacks and whites, kill and die side by side, but they do not have the same equality in society?

Adding on, King wants to furnish better rights and lives to African Americans. “In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check” (King 4). The use of metaphor in “cash a check” and connotative diction, King is promising that African Americans will be getting the rights they never had. Also, continuous use of metaphor shows that “America has given the Negro people bad check”, and that the check came back with “Insufficient funds” mark (King 4). “Cash a check” is a metaphor used for the promise Caucasian Americans made to guarantee equality and freedom for African Americans, but “insufficient funds” mark is the metaphor to display that Caucasian Americans broke the promise and they technically “owe” the freedom to African Americans.

dives deeper into the meaning of injustice and what it meant to the people of this time period. He uses events that African American people have gone through to describe the injustice as “…living constantly at tiptoe stance, never knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘nobodiness’” (70). To be a person, you have to be regarded as a human being who is an individual within your society. When you are regarded as a non-person, you are nonexistent or are unimportant within your society. This “nobodiness” that many African American people experienced in the South was a struggle between human dignity and their intrinsic worth. They were fighting to fit into a society that disregarded their human dignity, while feeling like within themselves, they had a strong intrinsic worth. Because of this, you cannot solely look at a textbook definition of injustice to truly understand what people who are being treated unjustly are going through. Society makes certain oppressed groups feel on edge at all times, making them feel that they have no place in our society. You cannot have legal and political justice without social justice. King makes a point in his letter to describe all three of these injustices and how they were

For example, they were not treated the same as all of the white men were. This helped provide the central idea that the African- Americans are not all the way free because they were being treated unfairly compared to the white men. An allusion that was used was where he was restating something from the Declaration of Independence which was where it said “ That all men have unalienable rights to the civil rights” (King). Martin Luther King Jr. was trying to use this device to show how important it is and how more emphasis was brought to it by him saying, “Yes all men, not just white men, this promised that all men are guaranteed unalienable

A man once stood in front of a crowd of thousands of people both black and white. He delivered a speech that fought for the possibility of an America where both black and white citizens were truly equal; this man was“Martin Luther King Jr”(Martin Luther King Jr.). One might fight back and argue that the laws during this time did make the African Americans equal but this was not true, as one of the laws stated the two as being Equal but separate. This law was one of the Jim crow laws, in which African americans were in theory separate and equal, but in reality were given second hand treatment after the prioritized white citizens (Richard). The Jim Crow laws were unconstitutional and took away many African Americans chances at being considered

His speeches were based upon his beliefs and the dreams of a better society. King had high hopes and spoke of his high hope for the black people. King didn’t make racial slurs against the white people, but he put the white and black people on the same level. He argued that every man, black or white should have equal rights.