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Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have A Dream

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Martin Luther King Jr. was a preacher, and a spokesperson for African Americans who were fighting for civil rights in the 1900’s. Martin’s “I Have a Dream” speech is probably the most recognizable speeches during the civil rights movement, or maybe even the most recognizable of all time. King’s speech was packed with literary devices, and figurative language. The grammar he used made his speech that much better. Let’s start simple, there are many similes. A simile is a figure of speech involving the comparison of one of another kind. Similes are used to make descriptions more emphatic and vivid. The first example is in the thirteenth paragraph. Dr. King said “We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness …show more content…

Symbolism is a figure of speech where an object, person, or situation has another meaning other than its literal meaning. A big example of symbolism in this speech is when King spoke of Abraham Lincoln. This is symbolism because Lincoln created the Emancipation Proclamation; and the Proclamation symbolises freedom.
Personification is also included. Personification is the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something inhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form. On page 4 King states “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of it’s creed.” The object being personified is The United States. You can tell because the United States is not alive, but it is given human-like qualities. When he says “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up”, the nation can't mentally or physically rise up.
The last example of figurative language is imagery. In “I Have a Dream” Martin Luther King Jr. is really good at putting an image in your head through his words. He expresses his feelings about the hard life of an African American. In one paragraph he said about how “...the negroes live on a lonely island of poverty in a vast ocean of material prosperity.” He also makes a very vivid image when he said “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of

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