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Emotional Appeals In Mlk Speech

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Martin Luther King Jr. uses both logical and emotional appeals in order for all his listeners’ to be able to relate and contemplate his speeches. He does an exceptional job using both these appeals throughout his speeches by backing up his emotional appeals with logical ones. Using emotional appeals captures an audience's attention and makes them think about what the narrator is saying. Emotional appeal uses intense words and charged language to grab listeners to get them to keep listening. On the other hand, logical appeals helps to grasp the concept better and provides facts that prove it to be true. MLK uses appeal to emotion and appeal to logic equally throughout his speeches. For example, in his speech “I Have a Dream”, he declaims, …show more content…

“...when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”- then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.” (MLK, 276). King uses this strong sense of appeal to emotion to engross his readers and let them know how hard it is for them. He then backs it up with a logical appeal explaining what it feels like to be treated in this matter and not be able to change it no matter how hard or how much you may try even if what you're doing to make a difference is completely legal. “...I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.” (MLK,277). King uses this appeal to logic to explain that African Americans can't really do anything to enforce a change and get treated equally because

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Throughout his speech he implies a lot of metaphors to make his speech effective and influencing. For example, King constantly describes the Negroes as being “crippled” by the “manacles of segregation”, “Storms of Persecution,” and “chains of discrimination.” Through these metaphors King indicates the crises the Negroes face. A few of King’s strongest metaphors are his references to prejudice: “the quick sands of racial injustice”, the “heat of oppression”, “the dark and desolate valleys of segregation”, and the “chains of discrimination.” King also indicates the unbearable inequality by creating an image: “the sweltering summer of the negro’s discontent.”

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