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Persuasive Techniques In Martin Luther King's Speech I Have A Dream

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What persuasive techniques have made Martin Luther King’s speech ‘I have a dream’ so famous? The speech by Martin Luther King ‘I have a dream’ is a well-known and regarded as one of the best speeches ever given. The key message of this speech is the gap between the dream of equality and the reality, and that all the people are created equally. While not the case in America at the time, King felt it must be the case for the future also. So he spoke very passionately and powerfully about this issue on 28th of August 1963 in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Martin Luther king used several persuasive techniques in his speech, such as imagery, simile, symbolism, metaphor, anaphora, irony and emphasis. The rhetorical device ‘Anaphora’ …show more content…

The audience's role in realizing the difference between what is said and what is normal or expected is essential to the successful use of irony. “bad check” is an example for it. When the King mentioned the “bad check”, he meant that the white people in America had abused Negroes for a long period and did not give them the deserved respect and justice. King spoke to the hearts of his listeners rather than to the heads. His choice of words were very emotion evoking and powerful, for example in “One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land”, the words like “Negro”, “languished”, “exile in his own land” stirs up an emotion the hearts of the …show more content…

King started his speech by mentioning the great American ‘Abraham Lincoln’, “a great American whose symbolic shadow we stand today”. The words “symbolic shadow” is a visual imagery that he used to signify the former president Abraham Lincoln, it means that this great person is still in the hearts of the Americans. He used imagery in the speech numerous times, “beacon light of hope”, “flames of withering injustice”, “valley of despair”, “red hills of Georgia” and “oasis of freedom and justice”. The main purpose for Martin Luther King to use imageries in his speech was to help get his message across the audience in a language that is extremely powerful, vivid and very clearly visualised. He used some words to create visuals in our minds that help us to interpret his speech in the way he view it. “Red hills of Georgia”, “red” represents the blood, indicating pain, sorrow and injustice and Georgia symbolizes

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Martin Luther king Jr. uses many stylistic elements such as allusion and metaphors to support his evidence and influence your readers. King wanted to give the readers something to think about and he wanted

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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.

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1963, time of the Civil Rights Movement, and the world was one of chaos and the fight for equality was at its end. 250,000 people congregated at Washington D.C. to listen to Martin Luther King Jr. express his and his followers views on the issue of racial injustice. His words persuaded and inspired many to not only end inequality, but to expose of it. However, none of this would of been possible if good ole rhetorical devices didn’t come into play. His superb usage of ethos, logos, and pathos quite possibly changed the outcome of the Civil Rights Movement.

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Martin Luther King’s skilled use of rhetorical techniques effectively reveals his purpose. In the text “Letter From Birmingham” Jail and I “Have a Dream” by Dr. King, he shows the audience the cruelty the African American community faces by using logos and pathos. In Martin Luther King’s pieces, he uses examples of logos to distinctly show the viewers what he is trying to convey. As mentioned in the text “An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law”. Any law that uplifts human personality is just.

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Kimel hopes against hope that in the future the people will fight against each other. Regardless of the symbols divergent to our opinion regarding the nation we should have hope and belief of a better world or future will dawn. With this positive note we are sure that all the mishaps and hazards faced by the victims so far will vanish and evaporate with expectation of independence in the near future: When it will be, I do not know, but Despite all the signs to the contrary.

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Martin Luther King Jr. was a leader in the African American Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, he was known for his nonviolent movements and methods of protesting. This involved many African American citizens to take verbal and physical abuse from the police and not being able to do anything about it. He used his words to inspire the nation into taking action, instead of promoting violence. Dr. King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech in front of thousands of United States citizen from all different backgrounds at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. Kings uses ethos to point out why segregation was unjust and to justify why African Americans deserves the same rights as the white citizens of the United States.

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Martin Luther King convinced his audience to stand up and fight for their rights; he used persuasion in a strategic way to up rise African Americans not only in the audience that day but across America into today. By using multiple emotive words, analogies and figurative language he created a beautiful persuasive Rhetoric speech that will be studied and referenced for years to come without disagreement there would be no conflict, and no real opportunity to gather people the way he did and influence people the way he did. This is obviously one of the best rhetoric speeches known in

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King appeals to the audience by using strong words and repetition. By using repetition of “let freedom ring” and with this faith it helps the audience be reminded of his purpose that change will occur and equality will reign. This rhetorical technique helps the speech come across strong and more powerful and really convinces the audience of the idea of change. Martin Luther King Jr’s speech was revolutionary and changed the view of many Americans. He helped achieve this effectiveness through his strong choice of diction and loaded words and his assertive tone that grasped the audience's attention.

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On August 28th, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr gave us one of one of the most rhetorically moving speeches ever given. Titled as the “I Have a Dream Speech,” he read this speech to the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom”. As a civil right mover he gave this great speech to all Americans (black and white) so that he could give off the idea of equality on the same level. Because of his crowd of mix races King made sure to make his speech imploring to all no matter what the race that they may be. He uses metaphorical imagery, powerful diction,and symbolism to create an impact on the audience.

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“In expressing [his own emotions] with such powerful eloquence, in connecting strongly with the emotions of his listeners, and in convincing them to empathize with others, Dr. King demonstrated emotional intelligence decades before the concept had a name”(“Dr. Martin”). He demanded to end racism throughout the entire United States. King utilized repetition, metaphors, diction and rhetorical devices, that provokes ethos and pathos, throughout his speech in order to connect with his audience as well as to motivate them to stand up and fight for their freedom they well-deserve. One of the most used literary elements throughout Martin Luther King’s speech are diction, which leads to rhetorical devices such as, ethos, logos, and pathos.

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Martin Luther King Jr. is one of the most influential African-American activists in American History and was a key participant in the Civil Rights movement, the goal of which was to provide full civil rights to all rights in America. MLK has written many, many speeches and letters in favor of the Civil Rights movement in America, the most famous of them being his legendary “I Have a Dream” Speech and the monumental “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. To attempt to gain support for his cause, MLK employs the use of emotional appeals, also known as pathos, and logical appeals, also known as logos, which aid to stir emotion and reasoning in the listener. It is more than obvious that MLK tends to tug at the heartstrings of his listeners with his emotionally charged language essential to his success. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. uses more powerful and plentiful examples of pathos in his literature, examples of which being his “I Have a Dream” speech and his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, than logos due to the more powerful emotional connection they carry which can convince his listeners to sympathize with his civil rights movement.

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King also discusses his personal life, along with his family and children, to show the crowd that he is fighting for the same things as them. In his I Have a Dream speech, Martin Luther King, Jr. used ethos to increase his credibility with his audience, pathos to appeal to his audience’s emotional side, and logos to appeal to his audience’s logical side. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s use of ethos begins in the first few lines of his I Have a Dream speech. He begins the speech with a direct reference to Abraham Lincoln and his Gettysburg Address. King speaks of Lincoln as an admired figure in the Civil Rights Movement when he states “Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand, signed the Emancipation Proclamation” (King 84).

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In 1963, Martin Luther King delivered one of the most influential and impactful speeches in history. King's I Have a Dream speech was consistently powerful assertions of emotional appeals, repetition and paradox. In King’s speech, he utilizes pathos to build a relationship between his black and white audience. This is evident through his references to both  black and white children and the history of slavery which appealed to the audience members of the older generation.

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Dr. King was a Baptist minister that was extremely involved in trying to end racial discrimination. Dr. King’s speech is known as “a masterpiece of rhetoric” by scholars. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech makes good use of the rhetorical triangle. The rhetorical triangle is composed of ethos, pathos, and logos. Ethos is convincing the audience that the author

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Martin Luther King 's uses various literary devices such as metaphors, personification, similes, and imagery in his speech so that his audience would be able to better understand and visual what he is saying. An example of a metaphor in King 's speech is when he compares the deprivation of African American rights with "a bad check that has come back from the bank of injustice marked with insufficient funds". He states that we must cash a check that will give us the riches of freedom and security of justice. This metaphor is referring to the freedom and rights that African American 's deserve and are promised but are not given. An example of personification in his speech is "Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

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