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Rhetorical Analysis Of Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream Speech

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Martin Luther King Jr's I Have a Dream speech was a monumental moment in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s, and is also identified as a key factor of American history. Martin Luther King Jr was able to captivate the attention and support of not only blacks, but also white liberals, by demonstrating the power of his rhetoric. King today is remembered as the most recognizable individual in American history, known for his use of strong language and his ability to influence a nation throughout the Civil Rights Movement. Delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to an audience of over 250,000 people, the purpose of Martin Luther King Jr's I Have a Dream speech was to call an end to racism throughout the United States. In this …show more content…

The use of repetition in I Have a Dream makes the speech much more powerful, which in turn forces the listener to focus on what he is saying. In the third paragraph, King repeats the phrase, “The Negro still..” Martin Luther King Jr does this to show that one hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation, blacks are still not free. This shows an element of pathos, by giving examples of how blacks still face discrimination and hardships in their everyday lives. By hearing about what African Americans face regularly, whites feel sympathy for them, which could help bring on immediate action and change. By saying, “the negro still..” King conveys to the audience that African Americans are still waiting for change; They are still waiting for equality. King uses the repetition of the phrase, “I have a dream,” to communicate to the audience what he wants for America. King demands a nation of equality for all people, a nation of brotherhood, and a nation of equal opportunity “where [you] are not judged by the color of [your] skin, but by the content of [your] character” (King 5) Towards the end of the speech, King repeats the phrase, “let freedom ring,” followed by different geological locations throughout the United States. Martin Luther King's purpose of repeating this phrase is to order freedom in all parts of the US, “from the mountains of New York to the hills of Mississippi.” (King 6) Equality is …show more content…

Allusions are “brief references to a person, place, event, or passage in a work of literature assumed to be sufficiently well known to be recognized by the reader.” (Rhetoric Terms – AP English 2) King references Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in one of the very first lines of the speech. He repeats the first line of the Emancipation Proclamation, “[five] score years ago..” King uses this method to show that still after 100 years, blacks are still enslaved. He goes on to say that blacks still face the same discrimination today as they did in the time of Lincoln: segregation, discrimination, poverty, and exile. He mentions the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, “note[s] that promised all men would be guaranteed the 'unalienable Rights' of 'Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.'” (King 1) His intentions by using this phrase were to contradict what these documents are saying. The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence guarantee the rights of all people, but years later after these documents are written, African Americans are still fighting for equality. King cites songs in I Have a Dream such as 'My Country 'Tis of Thee' in the final paragraphs of the

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