Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech is one of the most well-known and critically acclaimed speeches of all time. Every child, every teenager, every adult has at some point in their lives heard King’s speech. They have heard the words “I have a dream” ring through the air. The success of King’s speech is not accidental by any means. King’s speech bears many of the hallmarks of a strong persuasive speech. King used robust figurative language to persuade his audience, to impress upon them the severity of the situation. The fact that king was a preacher also contributed to his speech in many ways. Some of these ways included that King was practiced in the art of persuasion, he carefully chose his language each week for his sermon, and was clearly comfortable delivering a speech after the many hours of practice being a preacher provided.
King used figurative language to empower his speech in such as way that the audience could see, feel, and hear what King saw, felt, and hear. King provided vivid imagery, one aspect that Lucas
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In addition to building a strong cadence, it unifies a sequence of ideas, emphasizes an idea by stating it more than once, and helps create a strong emotional effect” (p. 231). In this case, King’s repeated use of “I have a dream” resulted in all of the above, especially the strong emotional effect. Martin Luther King used the repetition of “I have a dream” several times in his speech, including these times:
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’
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