Martin Luther King Rhetorical Analysis

In a speech Rev. Martian Luther King Jr. gave to the Riverside Church in New York City, King conveyed his beliefs on the horrific atrocities currently present in the Vietnam War. King began by stating that no longer Vietnam was a oversea issues, "Vietnam [had to be brought] into the field of my moral vision". Likewise, King stated the issues at home such as the overwhelming majority of the nation's poor were fighting in the Vietnam War. In King's mindset, a nation that held it self on the acclaim that all men are created equal, was in fact not equal. King uses a variety of persuasive elements including, but not limited to: concrete examples and analysis, a robust tone, and powerful rhetoric. While King was only one voice out of many of those who were on both sides of the war, King still managed to change others views about politics through the usage of his persuasive elements. In all, King posses a natural eloquence that allows him to spread his message far and wide with the hopes that America will never forget the testatrices that took place at home and oversea during the Vietnam War.

In paragraphs 12-14 King uses a combination of rhetorical strategies to argue the urgency for changing current segregation laws. Kings selective use of imagery, parallel structure, and metaphors helps bring out the emotions of the eight clergymen, making them feel sympathy and understand Martin Luther King Jr.s point of view.

In Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, King uses different rhetoric devices to advance his purpose, which is the African Americans have suffered too many injustices to keep quiet any more. The different rhetoric devices he uses are ethos, pathos, and logos.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech is one of the most successful and most legendary speeches in United States history. Martin Luther King Jr. was a masterful speaker, who established a strong command of rhetorical strategies. By his eloquent use of ethos, logos, and pathos, as well as his command of presentation skills and rhetorical devices, King was able to persuade his generation that "the Negro is not free" (King 1). His speech became the rallying cry for civil rights and lives on as an everlasting masterpiece.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” - Martin Luther King. These powerful words by Martin Luther King expresses his urgent call for action in the jim crow south. Martin Luther King had just gotten arrested in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963 for his protest towards civil rights. He wrote the piece Letter From Birmingham Jail in response to eight clergymen who questioned MLK’s actions and they called for unity. In this influential letter, Martin Luther King elaborates on the reasons for his actions and the need for everyone to join the cause for equality during a time of great stress and segregation between people. This letter was monumental in motivating African Americans to continue fighting against social inequality. This letter is very effective in persuading it’s readers to take action because of Martin Luther King’s use of rhetorical sense and devices to connect and spread his beliefs with his audience. All rhetorical devices are used but the two biggest factors in making this letter very effective is the use of logos and kairos throughout the piece. These rhetorical devices have allowed this piece to ring in the ears of many throughout the decades. Let’s examine both these devices in more depth through examples in MLK’s Letter From Birmingham Jail.

“But more basically,I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C.left their villages and carried their,”thus saint the lord” far beyond the boundaries of their home towns,and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world,so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town.like Paul,I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.”

Logos, pathos, and ethos have been utilized in writing from history to current day writing and literature. The three elements are called modes of persuasion that are used to convince the audience. We will be evaluating how Jackson used logos, pathos, and ethos to make his writing more convincing and appealing to his audience. To begin with, we will be examining logos used in writing.

Frederick Douglass, the author of his biography “Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass”, uses rhetoric in order to persuade his readers towards his ideas. Frederick Douglass uses Ethos in order to convince the author that he knows what he is talking about and how he himself is a credible source for the information he is delivering to thee reader. He uses Pathos to emotionally connect the reader to the text with relatability and through a manipulation of emotions. Lastly Frederick Douglass uses Logos in order to convince the reader and persuade them with factual information.

Many authors use rhetorical devices and strategies to get their point across and try to convince the reader to believe in their perspective. It can also be used to get emotions from its readers, but that isn’t really the whole point of persuading someone. For instance, Martin Luther King Jr. uses an abundance of pathos in order to make the reader or clergymen feel sympathy towards the black people. Along with pathos, he uses logos and a bundle of hypophora. In order to obtain the goal of persuasion, Martin Luther King Jr.’s letter contains rhetorical devices.

Once there was a man who tried to stand up for what he believed was right for his race. His name was Martin Luther King Jr. He then wrote a letter that was titled “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. In his letter, it describes rhetorical devices that are proved to be effective. The rhetorical device that was most effective in the letter was logos.

Both Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, use rhetorical devices to persuade their audience to protest the government in peaceful and progressive ways. There are numerous examples of historical allusions, audience appeals, and literary devices used to make their texts clear and concise. King and Thoreau each call the populace to act against governmental bodies to cause productive, peaceful change.

Dr. King gave a demonstration concerning this agonizing, perplexing question by recalling an event that occurred immediately after Christ’s transfiguration. Therefore, as Jesus was coming down from the mountain, He found a small boy that was in wild convulsions. Continuously the disciples had tried desperately to cure the unhappy child, but the harder they labored to heal him the more they realized their own inadequacies and the pathetic limitations of their power. But just before they were about to give up in despair; Jesus appeared on the scene. Then after the father of the child told Jesus of the failure of the disciples, Jesus “rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him, and the child was cured that same hour.”

We have all heard Martin Luther King’s famous speech, I have a Dream. His main goal was to convince everyone across the country to comprehend racial equality and to reinforce a solution for those individuals already engaged in the Civil Rights movement. You could say his speech was part of what made the movement successful. By him taking a stand, much attention was put into the problems that were going on. He was and still is viewed as an important leader who was an activist in the Civil Rights Movement. Here we will basically dissect parts of his speech and define the points he was making and trying to make. Throughout the paper, you will see how Dr. King uses Ethos, Pathos, and Logos to show his audience and make them feel what went on.

wrote a very well planned out speech for the specific occasion he was speaking at. He made his speech on August 28th 1963, a time where racism was ravaging especially in the south. However, being the man he was, he bravely stood up in front the nation’s capitol and spoke his mind. He had such eloquence when he wrote this because it flows so well.

Barack Obama, Martin Luther King Jr. and Fannie Lou Hamer all delivered powerful, persuasive speeches that will go down in history. The use of these creative individuals’ language and persuasion played a pivotal role within the civil rights movement. We can observe this in the speakers’ rhetoric devices like ethos, logos and pathos.