A Comparison Of I Have A Dream And Letter From Birmingham Jail

In arguing, writers use different techniques to effectively convey their message to their intended audience. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" was a response to "A Call for Unity" by eight white clergymen in which King’s presence in Birmingham and his methods of public demonstration were questioned. King’s letter was not only a response to his presence in Birmingham, but he also used the opportunity to address the unjust proposals by the clergymen that Negroes wait for the legal system to abolish segregation and unjust laws. King uses rhetorical modes of persuasion such as ethos, pathos and logos to meticulously address and discredit the claims made by the

King uses a vast amount of emotion into his letter to the clergymen. He believes it will show people how much the colored people go through and hurt physically and emotionally. Colored people are humiliated everywhere they go, by Caucasian people or even the local grocery stores that have racial signs posted out front. There “came the opportunity to talk with leaders of

As a result, it can make all American initiatively to support the civil rights movement. King’s adjectives also help him persuade the reader in this situation. When he says that the tears were “welling up” it adds imagery and the audience can actually picture this scene, and this will make people for guilty or sad. Also, at the following sentences in this letter, King mentions, “When you have seen; when you take; when you are hurried…” (360). The word "when" that he appear up to 11 times. King uses parallel construction to present the true stories to make the audience cannot stop struggling with the sad emotional in order to let they change their mind. Since it is associated with our life, our family, our friends based on the human level. It is a long difficult road that the whole American society had to face, and it let the clergymen introspect on their own initiative drive by the emotional. On top of that, King emphasizes the contrast between their rising hopes and crushing disappointments to make his point. The whites had again failed to live up to their promises to help work towards equality. King states they are the victims of a broken promise, "As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us”(358).

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a key figure in the civil rights movements that took place in the 1950s and 1960s. The “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” is an open letter written by King defending nonviolent resistance against racism. The letter argued that people have a moral responsibility to break unjust and unethical laws. The letter also stresses themes of unity among brothers in order to overcome racism. I will argue in support of King’s stance that citizens are morally justified in breaking unjust laws and that openly and responsibly opposing unjust laws is itself a duty of every citizen.

In Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, he uses rhetorical questions in combinations with logos to persuade his audience on the value of civil disobedience. For example, on page 8 he states “But can this be assertion be logically made? Isn’t this like condemning the robbed man because his possession of the money precipitated the evil act of the robbery”? He is comparing someone being robbed to himself in the civil rights movements. He shows the way the police are prosecuting him is unfair, and is not logical because he is just bringing to attention the racial injustice in America. Furthermore, he states “Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, etc? Isn’t negation a better path? Indeed, this is a purpose of direct action”

The use of logos (Ruszkiewicz) in the argument made by Dr. King proves that reason does rule over emotion, at least in the words he was able to get on paper. Even the use of paper was withheld initially to Dr. King and yet his words shine through the murk of politics and the depths of pathos. No matter what beliefs were held throughout Alabama at the time, it is hard to disagree with a point made so obvious through common sense. Just after the passage mentioned above he uses a great deal of pathos to back up his point. He asks “Will we be extremists for hate or for love:”, while this is an appeal to pathos it is directly backing up the conclusion reached through using logos. While initially disappointed, after thinking it through he decides being an extremist is really very satisfactory. He even uses ethos to back up the logos of his prior statements by comparing himself to historical and biblical figures once also deemed extreme. By keeping a clear head unclouded by ethos or pathos, he was able to speak precisely and profoundly to the heart of the matter.

The primary goal of a sermon in church is to convince or persuade the congregation to turn to God and follow his ways and beliefs. A sermon is commonly broken up into several subsections beginning with “(1) an introduction ‘to establish a common ground of religious feeling’; (2) ‘a statement of the text’ which is often drawn directly from the Bible; (3) the ‘body of the sermon,’ which consists of repeated emotional climaxes; and (4) the ‘conclusion’ which resolves the emotional tension aroused by the sermon by drawing the sinners to God.” (Pipes 143). Based on these characteristics and King’s religious background and experience as a preacher, it is logical to argue that the structure of “A Letter from the Birmingham Jail” resembles that of a sermon which is aimed at an audience much larger than that of just eight clergymen. Through his brilliant use of persuasive methods and emotional appeal, Martin Luther King turns a simple response to a letter into a national cause for white support to combat segregation.

First Martin Luther King effectively makes use of logos throughout his letter. He clarifies all of the reasons for his arguments and supports them

“A Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr. was written in the margins of a letter posted by the clergymen of Alabama at this time that sparked his interest and while he inhabited the jail cell for parading around without a permit. This time allowed him the ability to respond wholeheartedly to this cynical oppressing. King’s letter addresses specific points presented in the Clergymen’s and this direct response distinguishes King’s strong points through his powerful writing.  Unethical and immoral mentions came to the attention of the Minister through the letter, and he expressed his differing views and defended his ideals and actions through Aristotle’s three rhetorical devices, ethos, logos, and pathos.

In the year of 1963, Martin Luther King was imprisoned for peacefully marching in a parade as a nonviolent campaign against segregation. In Martin Luther King’s essay “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” the paragraphs that have the most emotional appeal are, just as the critics say, paragraphs thirteen and fourteen. King tugs at the reader’s emotions in these specific paragraphs using very detailed examples about the difficult, heart-wrenching misfortunes that have happened to the African American society and what they had to endure on a daily basis in Birmingham by using metaphors, contrasts, alliteration, anaphora, and imagery. As taken from an excerpt of “MLK - Letter From A Birmingham Jail,” In paragraphs thirteen and fourteen of Letter

Writing from the heart, expressing feelings, having a strong emotional impact on ones audience, using an appeal to emotion and logic, using facts and presenting arguments in a professional way, to the enlightenment of one's viewers; Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail; consists of three Rhetorical Strategies throughout his letter that is known and taught around the world as ETHOS, PATHOS and LOGOS. An appeal to ethics, a means of convincing someone of the character or credibility of the persuader (ethos), an appeal to emotion, and a way of convincing an audience of an argument by creating an emotional response (Pathos), and finally, an appeal to logic, and is a way of persuading an audience by reason (Logos); these three Rhetorical Strategies are used countless times throughout Martin Luther King’s Letter for Birmingham Jail.

An example of logos can be found in paragraph nineteen which reads, “Even today, 22 percent of heart recipients die in less than four years, and 12 percent reject a new heart within the first few months.” This sentence is an example of logos, because it uses logical facts. The rhetorical appeal pathos can be seen stated in paragraph twenty-five which says, “He’s the one I wish would survive, I realize, even though there was never any chance of that.” This sentence is an example of pathos, because it gets to the reader’s inner emotions. Those are just some examples of how Khan uses the rhetorical appeal successfully

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.

For example, in lines 69-76, King answers the critics questioning of his use of direct action and marches to protest against segregation. He states that “nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored” (71-73). This explanation is so broken down and easy to understand that it would not make sense to disregard it and agree with the critics. Another instance in which King uses logos is when, as mentioned above, he references the Holocaust and Hitler’s mistreatment of Jews in lines 181 to 185. He discusses how the definitions of “illegal” and “legal” were skewed during that horrific time period. King connects how the definitions in Germany during the Holocaust are similar to the definitions during the Civil Rights Movement about segregation. This appeals to the critics and readers logos because it forces them to think about how terrible the Holocaust was and the treatment of Jews, and realize that the Jews and the African-Americans were being treated in a similar sense. The way King uses logos, is very effective because he makes his ideas and points have sound reasoning while politely diminishing the reasoning of the

Martin Luther King’s use of Pathos and Logos in “I have a Dream” showcases how he uses the devices to inspire others, compared to how he uses these rhetorical devices in “Letter From Birmingham Jail” to persuade the Clergymen. Martin Luther King, also referred to MLK, uses both Pathos and Logos to fit the audiences and occasions for each text. His uses of Pathos and Logos in these two texts are examples of how words can inspire change.