Martin Luther King Figurative Language

113 Words1 Pages
King uses figurative language (“engulfs,” “ugly . . . brutality,” “unsolved bombings”) to create vivid images that evoke fear, injustice, and inescapability, and toshow that King and his affiliates have completed the first step of the nonviolent campaign: “collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive” (par. 6). King uses alliteration (“its ugly record of police brutality,” “its unjust treatment of Negroes,” and its “unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches”) to create a rhythm in the text, which strengthens the persuasiveness of his explanation that the “city fathers” have “refused to engage in good-faith negotiation” (par. 6), because if they had these injustices would not be so present in Birmingham.