I Have A Dream Rhetorical Analysis

The Rhetorical Analysis of I Have a Dream

The speech “I Have a Dream” was delivered by Martin Luther King on August 28, 1963. Martin Luther King was the leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. The theme of the speech is the expectation of the black and white peacefully and equally existing. The background of the speech is the march on Washington for jobs and freedom, which was one of the largest political rallies for human rights in Unites States history and demanded civil and economic rights for African Americans. The purpose of the speech is to call for an end to racism in the United States and call for civil and economic rights. The well-known speech adopts many rhetorical strategies such as ethos, logos and pathos to make

One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition”. These sentences adopt logos, parallelism, metaphor and pathos. First, these sentences use logos which means the logical appeal in writing. These sentences explain why the black people came that day, and the reasons were that the black people had no freedom in America and that they had difficulty in living. These words “shameful condition”, shows that the black people’s situation of living was extremely serious. Second, parallelism can be easily found. Parallelism is constructing word groups into consistent and balanced patterns using the same grammatical forms. King repeats “one hundred years later” several times to stress the position of the black people, which is an example of parallelism. Third, this sentence “the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity” uses metaphor. The definition of metaphor is a comparison without the use of like or as. King compares the position that the black

First, “ We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highway and the hotels of the cities. We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one”. It is also a combination of pathos and parallelism. From these sentences, “we can never be satisfied as long as”, which is repeated, shows the feeling about the civil rights of the black people in America. Also, a few words “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream” is an instance of simile. Simile is a comparison with the use of like or as. Justice is like waters, which conveys that they hope justice is as natural as water rolling down, and it will not be resisted. “Righteousness like a mighty stream” shows the power of righteousness is mighty, and righteousness will never disappear. The black people are dying to get justice and righteousness, and want that justice and righteousness will not be defeated by anything, especially the different