Letter From Birmingham Jail Rhetorical Analysis

Martin Luther King was a very powerful speech writer, as well as great at getting the point across through paper. In two of his most famous works of art, “I Have a Dream” and “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” he uses many different types of writing tools. Some of these writing tools include, analogies, rhetorical questions, and repetition. Some tools are only used in one or the other because it either wouldn’t make sense, or it would bring down the strength of the words within the work. The use of analogies is very common in his work. In Martin Luther King, Jr's “I Have a Dream” speech he uses the analogy quite often. Analogies are used to try and get at a reader's emotions. They are also used to try and exaggerate a point so that it either looks

King’s works of art. Rhetorical questions are often used to get a read to begin thinking about something because often after that question, the writer will prolly give some opinions that are based upon the question. In his “I have a Dream” speech he only asks one question, and then right after answers it, therefore it isn’t a rhetorical question. He likely doesn’t use them because the rest of the speech is full of repetition and analogies. Both of these give a very strong and powerful vibe, unlike what a rhetorical question would do. On the contrary. His “Letter From Birmingham Jail” uses an abundant amount of rhetorical questions. In the letter, he often asks multiple questions at once, prolly to show that many questions of his are unanswered. An example would be on page 273, paragraph 8 where he asks “Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?” and then right after asks, “Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?” On page 273, paragraph 10, he asks another series of three questions. How he constantly asks questions is like he’s a lawyer trying to get answers. On page 283, he does the same repetition of asking loads of questions, this time he asks five questions. This gets the reader thinking, “wow, maybe these people aren’t bad and really have a good point on what they’re fighting for.” One page 281, he asks two questions both starting with “Will we be extremists…?” These both are questions about how will the

King uses repetition in his writings to give it more power and rhyme. Mr. King uses repetition in his I have a dream speech because it creates a sense of power that emphasizes the main points as well as lets the speech flow smoothly. He uses the repetition of the phrase “One hundred years later,” to enhance that one hundred years later the Negroes are still fighting for civil and legal rights. On page 262, paragraph 5, he repeats “we refuse to believe,” trying to get the point across that the fighters for justice don’t believe that they cannot give them what they are asking for. He also uses the repetition of “we can never be satisfied” to show that they won’t be satisfied until they get what they’re asking for such as racial equality, rights to vote, and desegregation. He then repeats “go back to,” multiple times, telling the listeners of his speech to go back home and keep fighting for freedom. He lists many states and places to show that people across the nation want equality, not just the small group of Negroes in Alabama. He then repeats prolly his most famous words, “I have a dream.” These words for Martin Luther King, Jr. show what he wants to see out of America for his kids, and their kids, and everyone else's future generations to come. His last two repeated words in the “I have a dream” speech are “with this faith” and “Let freedom ring.” Now these correlate together in the sense that with the faith in their process, then freedom will ring from