Rhetorical Analysis Of Dr. Martin's Speech

His tone is sad and disturbed when he implies, “freedom riders were brutalized and mobbed”, “Wherever there was hard work,dangerous work---on the mines, in the docks--- negroes have done more than their share”. He uses this construction and images to encourage people to work toward change. However, toward the end, his tone changes into a passionate tone. He moves on to,”The boy in the Harlem stood up. The girl in Birmingham arose.” The boy in passage, was Martin Luther King. He is showing that he witnessed the effects of racism and he is writing his

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is a key factor in the end of segregation. Dr. King establishes a frustrated tone throughout his letter to persuade his audience. Dr. King uses a multitude of rhetorical strategies to get his point across. Dr. King uses his position as a clergyman to establish a position using imagery, tone, and word choice. To begin, Dr. King uses imagery to demonstrate the everyday hardships the average African American goes through.

Martin Luther King Jr. is known for his speeches and active movements against segregation and oppression of African Americans in the mid-1900s. In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, King makes apparent the three artistic appeals, especially logos and pathos. Throughout the entire piece, King repeatedly appeals to logos and pathos using a series of rhetoric including anaphora, imagery, and allusion. By using these literary devices, King is able to effectively correct the misconceptions held by his accusers and justify the behavior of the nonviolent protest by shining light on the unjustified segregation that is holding the African American community hostage. In a response to a statement issued by eight white religious leaders of the South, King maintains a steady and respectful tone conveying to his audience his refinement and good cause.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s written works serve as a bridge that joins past and present day America, allowing citizens today to better understand the full magnitude of the civil rights movement. American citizens today are able to look back on his written works and feel the same raw connection, sorrow, and fire as thousands of citizens in the 1960s. Not only do his works unite two distinguishable time periods, but they are used in education systems as well. King expertly utilizes numerous rhetorical devices within his literary works that effectively communicate his message and create an emotional connection with his audience. From the “I have a dream” speech to his letter from Birmingham City Jail, students study and analyze his allusions, imperative statements, metaphors, and anaphoras, to better

Dr. King uses literary device such as parallelism to describe the events that preceded to the nonviolent protest and how Negroes live everywhere. We have waited for

By repeating these words, King uses a powerful and assertive strategy to introduce an idea that might seem unattainable. For example, King says, “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 brotherhood” (King, 113). To many of King’s listeners, this may seem unachievable, but King continues to assert his dream and the extent that he hopes it reaches. By using anaphora, King successfully draws the audience in to focus on the main point of his speech. These two rhetorical devices help Martin Luther King establish the main premise of his beliefs and unite the communities of America.

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.

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.

King is able to unify the protesters, encourage them to rise up together, and defeat the atrocity of racism by alluding to their anguish through personification and imagery. For example, King recognizes that “the nation is sick”(King 2). King assigns human qualities to the nation in order to comment on the offenses committed against the African Americans by the people of the nation. These offenses remind the audience of their common struggle and unify them. In doing so, King reveals that this is an issue but it can be resolved and the audience can heal the nation as they would a human being. Imagery in King’s speech also develops the intensity of the distress African Americans face. To illustrate, King describes “thirteen hundred of God’s children here suffering, sometimes going hungry, going through dark and dreary nights” (King 4). This gut-wrenching image causes the audience to feel immense sorrow and anguish for the African Americans depicted. These emotions are uniform in every member of the audience and thus unites them on an emotional level. A pathetic appeal is integrated into King’s argument to stop this pain and

In addition to King’s uses of allusions, the speech contains many contrasting metaphors and similes that influence his audience very effectively. He begins by pointing out that even though Negros are freed from slavery, they are still slaves “crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.” King then goes on about how “America has given the negro people a bad check” whereas the check in this instance symbolizes their right to equality because the mistreatment of the Negroes and racial discrimination is evident and the check “has come back marked ‘insufficient funds’” meaning they have yet to feel what they too, are guaranteed. With that understanding of human nature, Martin Luther King, Jr. compares gradualism to a tranquilizing drug, implying that people have a tendency to relax when things are “cooling off.” But he urges for his people not to relax and to take charge “to make justice in reality for all of God’s children.”

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.

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.

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. uses one linguistic style rhetoric, that provides the audience with an elaboration of the speech “I Have a Dream.” The elaboration of the speech should be high enough for the audience to scrutinize the message, but by clear enough for the audience to understand the substance of the speech. It should be spoke with one style that displays the correct elaboration.

King’s use of contrast begins almost immediately, as he defines the rhetorical situation to which he is responding. At the commencement of the oration, King notes that the occasion “will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation,” (King 1). By doing so, King establishes the March on Washington as a day that will stand out from the discourse of hate that the United States had been experiencing. To further lay the groundwork for his message, King explains that the Emancipation Proclamation was a “momentous decree” and “a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves,” (King 1). In this way, King contrasts the goals of the Emancipation Proclamation with the disappointing ends that it has achieved. King laments, a century has passed and “the Negro is still badly crippled by the

A typical example is the work of Martin Luther King Jr with his famous speech ‘I have a dream’ (1963) in which he incited for the end of racism in the US. From the use of repetition of ‘I have a dream’ to create emphasis on his vision on racism to the use of metaphor ‘happiness is a sunny day, loneliness is a locked door, cosiness is a cat on your lap’ to show the contrast between racism and freedom, he has been able to deliver a very prophetic speech ‘now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children’. Martin Luther King words act as the trigger component in the progessive change of the civil rights of the Black Americans as he was ‘the right man delivered the right words to the right people in the right place at the right time’ (Antony Trendl, 2017). King’s grandiloquent speech remains in history and has influenced many activists such as Coretta Scott King (1927-2006) and Rosa Parks (1913-2005) to name