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Rhetorical Techniques Used In I Ve Been To The Mountaintop

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I’ve Been to the Mountaintop Dr. King was a prominent man. A prominent man who wanted people to be judged not by the color of their skin, but by who they were as a person. This idea of his is reflected throughout the speech. He uses various rhetorical devices to develop his theme, including repetition, comparisons, allusions, and logical tools, to name a few. Dr. King repeatedly used repetition throughout the entire speech. He used several different kinds repetition in the speech, including parallelism and straight repetition. For example, Dr. King used repetition in the speech in paragraph 22 by saying, “Something is happening in Memphis, something is happening in our world.” This is an example of parallelism because it used a repetition of grammatical structure for effect. This builds his theme by referencing the civil rights movement. Another example of repetition was in paragraphs 35 through 41 when Dr. King repeatedly states, “If I had sneezed.” This is straight repetition because he repeats …show more content…

King used various kinds of logical tools. Dr. King used several different kinds of logical tools. They include tools like asyndeton and hyperbole. An example of an asyndeton from the speech is when Dr. King says, “The nation is sick, trouble is in the land, confusion all around. This is an asyndeton because there is a lack of conjunction between the phrases. This helps build his theme by using a rhetorical device to reference the systematic racism of that time. Another example of logical tools in the speech is a hyperbole. Dr. King says, “... if something isn’t done… to bring the colored peoples of the world out of their long years of poverty; their long years of hurt and neglect, the whole world is doomed (paragraph 12).” The reason this is a hyperbole is that while the racism was horrible and needed to be ended, the whole world wasn’t going to end. This builds on his theme with this quote by referencing how black people are fighting for equal

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