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Rhetorical Analysis Of I Have A Dream

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“I Have a Dream…” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a great person. He did so much for everyone’s civil rights, peacefully fighting for the rights African Americans deserved. He was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. He spent his adulthood in Montgomery, Alabama, married Coretta Scott King, and had 4 children. His whole life was segregated, as many African American’s lives were. African Americans couldn’t even go to the same school as white people, and did not have enough money or resources to help African American children learn what they needed to become functioning people of America. The African Americans were treated very unfairly. They were sprayed with fire hoses for peacefully marching through the streets, and they were chased …show more content…

Martin Luther King wrote “I Have a Dream” and spoke for all people of America. He wrote his speech so everyone who wasn’t aware of what was going on would know how African Americans were being treated. He used a lot of literary elements in “I Have a Dream”, including metaphors and allusions. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used tons metaphors in his speech “I Have a Dream”. Metaphors, similes, and analogies are used to compare things in slightly different ways. A metaphor is a word or phrase that is applied to an action or an object without using the words “like” or “as”, for example in paragraph 5 of Dr. King’s speech, “Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’ But we refuse to believe the bank of justice is bankrupt. So we have come to cash this check-a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.” In this …show more content…

Martin Luther King Jr. also used allusions, which are references to something historical, such as a person, place/event in history, art, religion, etc. People make allusions every day. They are used so that the object, for example, the historical document being referred to is automatically thought about. Like if someone says something about Martin Luther King Jr., you think about all the things he did for Civil Rights, and what a good person he was. Allusions are usually made to something good. For an example, in paragraph 2 of Dr. King’s most famous speech, he used the words, “Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation.” Dr.King used almost the same words that Abraham Lincoln used as an opening for the Gettysburg Address, “Four score and seven years ago…” meaning 87 years ago. A score is 20 years, and it’s more exciting to use “A score” instead of “20 years”. This reference also is from the Bible, Psalm 90, “Three score years and ten…” meaning 70 years. In Dr.Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech in paragraph 4, it gives a reference to the Declaration of Independence saying, “guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” As Dr. King stated in paragraph 13, “...true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” This statement is from the second paragraph of the Declaration of

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