I Have A Dream Rhetorical Analysis

One hundred years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation to stop slavery, Martin Luther King, Jr. presented the “I Have a Dream” speech to thousands of people. The day Luther King, Jr.’s speech was the day of the March on Washington, which was for the support of the rights o colored citizens, and for the termination of segregation. King delivered this speech with a tone of hope and determination in order to convince colored people to fight for their rights and persuade the citizens that all lives matter and should be treated equally. He also delivered it in order to urge the rights these people deserved. Luther stood before all these people to express his thoughts on equality and the rights his people were stripped of. Kings’ audience consisted of the citizens of America that believed in equality for all races. In the “I Have a Dream” Speech, Martin Luther King, Jr used many metaphors, similes, analogies, Pathos, and Mythos to connect with his audience on a superior level and develop his tone.

From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial more than forty years ago, Martin Luther King electrified America with his momentous "I Have a Dream" speech. This speech demanded racial justice towards the mistreated black community of America. The theme of the speech was that all humans were created equal and that this should be the case for the future of America. King's words proved to touch the hearts of millions of people and gave the nation a vocabulary to express what was happening to the black Americans. This did not happen by chance. Martin Luther King's speech was carefully constructed so it would have the most appropriate diction to propose his facts and ideas. His speech involved multiple different literary techniques which were very

In this speech, King utilizes diction throughout, such as "we," "America" and "free." Words like "we," and "America" in the same sentences and same speech, gives everyone, African-Americans, the feeling of being equal and they deserve to have the same rights. Thus giving hope to everyone that they will, one day, be equal in everyway and have the same unalienable

By using allusion to historical leaders and documents, he reminds the audience of the past and strengthens his argument the time for change was long overdue. Repeating the phrases “I have a dream”, “Now is the time”, “Let freedom ring” and “Free at last”, King used anaphora and repetition to bring the speech to a great climax and leave the audience completely energized. King also used parallelism to unify the movement’s effort into one group of equal parts by urging the audience to “Go back to” Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, as well as “the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities”. He also used parallelism to send a message of unification to all parts of the country by repeating the phrase “Let freedom ring” combined with names of many of our country’s mountain ranges, just as in the song “America” by Samuel Francis Smith (My Country! ‘Tis of Thee). Perhaps it was King’s use of metaphors that made the speech draw in the audience. He described the circumstances of racism and inequality with phrases descriptive of slavery including “flames of withering injustice”, “chains of discrimination” which connected the audience to their past while inspiring them to change their future.

King’s speech; he puts himself in everyone else’s shoes by saying, “I am happy to join with you today.” By doing this, he captures their attention by telling them that “today will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.” Now that the audience is fully engaged, he moves towards the sole purpose of his speech. He does this by saying that after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, “100 years later the Negro still is not free.” He goes on to continue to list some of the issues which still occur today and ends his introduction with saying “now is the time” to start action. The body of his speech is primarily made up of the summarization of injustice that the African American people face. He brings up the fact that some people are unable to vote and the police brutality’s which of course support his argument. He makes it personal by giving his insight of his hopes and dreams for the future by stating that his kids will “not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” The speech’s conclusion properly reviews Martin Luther King Jr.’s points and stimulates the emotions of the audience. He does this by using the repetition of the phrase “let freedom ring” to rejoin with the audience and really emphasizes his belief of the importance of freedom and injustice. Finally, the last line of his speech, “all of God 's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and

With the people of The United States of America categorized as the audience, King speaks to people of all races and ethnicity. This discriminated audience included the grasping appeals to the ethos, pathos, and logos. As each appeal is fully informed of the rhetorical purpose, King finds a way to encourage all three. Through several metaphors and types of imagery, he makes the decision to speak to all of the appeals in order to accomplish to need for change. Clearly aimed directly at the hearts of blacks and making the whites feel ashamed of their actions brought together a turn in society as they knew it. This specific structure geared towards the audience was the main reason why King impacted Americans across the country and not just at the march. These different appeals mixed within the audience to help King influence his purpose of racial equality as each type of person could relate to his moving words.

African American Baptist minister and activist, Martin Luther King, Jr., in his “I Have a Dream” speech, addresses racism against Negros and demands equal rights and freedoms. King’s purpose is to motivate his audience to join him in fighting for what they deserve. He shifts from an urgent, demanding tone at the beginning of the speech to a more hopeful and patriotic tone towards the end. Throughout the speech, Dr. King appeals to the audience’s desire to better their futures by utilizing figurative language, such as similes and metaphors, and rhetorical devices such as repetition and parallelism.

On August 28th, 1963, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr stood on the steps in front of the Lincoln Memorial and delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. He spoke passionately for 17 minutes on his views about human equality for African Americans at one of the largest civil rights demonstrations in history. King played a major role in ending the segregation for African Americans. His rhetorical language left an impact on America. Through his use of appeals like ethos, logos, pathos, and other rhetorical techniques. He influenced Americans to believe in the notion that all men are created equal.

In Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech, King makes use of an innumerable amount of rhetorical devices that augment the overall understanding and flow of the speech. King makes the audience feel an immense amount of emotion due to the outstanding use of pathos in his speech. King also generates a vast use of rhetorical devices including allusion, anaphora, and antithesis. The way that King conducted his speech adds to the comprehension and gives the effect that he wants to rise above the injustices of racism and segregation that so many people are subjected to on a daily basis.

In his speech, King expresses, that the "Negro...finds himself in exile in his own land” (Jr., Dr. Martin). This expression yields empathy as it demonstrates that he sympathizes with the unreasonable treatment and distance of African Americans. He likewise utilizes highly conative words to bring out an enthusiastic reaction in the audience, for example, "chains of discrimination" and "oppression" to fortify the requirement for change. He also uplifts his audience through positive diction using words such as “freedom,” “majestic,” and “brotherhood” to spur and move his crowd. He additionally claims to logos through his utilization of analogies: “America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient

    The speech opens up with a very strong use of diction that creates a logical and emotional appeal on the audience. At this point, the speech already created an appeal of pathos. He then goes onto create a very logical appeal when stating that the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 gave “hope to millions of Negro slave who had seared in the flames of withering injustice.” The Emancipation Proclamation was the first event where African Americans were increasing up the ladder of social hierarchy. Dr. King uses anaphora, the repetition of a word, to create and appeal of emotion and logic. He describes that it has been one hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation but still “the life of the Negro is still badly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination”,” the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast

In his speech he says, “/ […]/ Negro / […]/ finds himself in exile in his own land.” Not only does that phrase show his sympathy on Negros and their unfair treatment, but it acknowledges his audience’s emotions and leads them to have compassion towards those that do not have equality. Another example of pathos that he uses in his speech is to have emotional words to capture the hearts of his listeners such as, “shameful” “sadly crippled” “chains of discrimination” “guilty” and “hatred.” Dr. King uses these words in his speech to motivate and inspire his audience to have their voices heard in order to stop segregation. His use of pathos influences his audience/readers to make a stand for their

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote and delivered many speeches in his lifetime. However, perhaps one of the best known and the most easily recognized of his speeches is “I Have a Dream.” But many ask, what in particular about this speech made it have such a great impact on the population? He uses repetition to make important words stand out. Such instances occur with the words and phrases: “now is the time”, “I have a dream”, “let freedom ring”, and “free at last” (Narins, par.6,15,22,27). All of these words have to do with blacks becoming free, or acquiring civil rights and equality. King also used imagery in his speech when he compared a “sweltering summer” to the Negro’s unhappiness of the lack of freedom and justice. Martin Luther King Jr. also used

In Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech: “I Have a Dream,” he argues that all people are created equal and racism should be eliminated. He supports his claim by first illustrating an image of the future he believes in by anaphorically saying “I have a dream.” He then addresses the black community by saying they need to take their rights, then he demands America to give the black community their rights, and finally tries to convince America broke their promise. King’s purpose is to explain the black Community’s problems in order to set them free from the prison that is their daily life in America. He establishes a hopeful tone that is meant to represent a promising future for black people, targeted at Whites,

King inspires those who support equal rights for all “ to rise up from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial injustice”.and stand up for what they believe. He insists that people who believe in the cause to speak up and join together as one voice, to demand equal rights that they deserve. In addition King uses Light and Dark imagery to make a statement on how people have been waiting a long time to receive equality and the same freedom as everyone else. He does this by discussing the Emancipation Proclamation, and how “ It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.