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I Have A Dream Rhetorical Devices

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PART A – Speech Delivery
1. Martin Luther King Jr. provides a very dramatic speaking style in his “I Have a Dream” speech, in which he alters his prosody by changing the pitch of his voice. One instance of this is when Dr. King Jr. says, “I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of ‘interposition’, and ‘nullification’ – one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today!” (7:36). King alters his prosody by changing the pitch of his voice multiple times throughout this moment. He makes it sound similar to singing a song, as there …show more content…

Metaphors in “I Have a Dream” appear all throughout King’s speech. It is first used very heavily near the introduction and it is spoken, “America has given the Negro people a bad cheque, a cheque which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’… And so, we've come to cash this cheque, a cheque that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice” (3:14). He is illustrating a connection with the African American population and a banking metaphor of a “bad cheque”, and says that they have all come to “cash this cheque”, referring to taking a stance and claiming the freedom that they should have, which comes across as very motivational. By using this metaphor, he is providing a better understanding of the audience, allowing them to have more of an emotional response; they truly want to cash this cheque. If spoken plainly, though he would have distributed his ideas, it would have been less effective with the audience. Though there are many of the Five Canon Styles that appear in this speech, the use of metaphor can be related to the cannon of style, because this is how King is choosing to express many of his ideas. This is done in order provide his audience with more detail to the concept that he is trying to illustrate, promoting them to further use their

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Martin Luther King Jr.’s overall tone in his speech is determination; determination to gain equality for all races and colors and for the nation to unite in fighting the injustices of inequality in America in the 1950’s. I Have A Dream, is all about his dream that one day all the injustices in the world will one day disappear. The use of diction brings the reader towards his tone of determination , contributing to his overall feelings towards his mission of wanting freedom and equality, which he portrays throughout the entire speech. King uses bold words repetitively such as "freedom" "dream" and “justice” to open his argument that equality will bring freedom to the black community.

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