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Rhetorical devices in mlk's speech
Rhetorical devices in mlk's speech
How does mlk use pathos and logos in his letter from birmingham jail
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Martin Luther King Jr. was an American baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the Civil Rights Movement in 1954. He had a great impact on race relations in the U.S. and he made a great impact on many lives. He died in 1968. Dr. King wrote 2 famous works, “Dream” and “Birmingham” and each had a different audience and purpose. Both works utilizes the persuasive techniques of pathos in “Dream” and logos in “Birmingham.”
does use historical and biblical allusions through out his whole letter, there are two allusions that really stand out. On page 289 paragraph 31 Martin Luther King Jr. is referring to the clergymen letter of calling himself an “extremist” King proclaims “ But although I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist......... Was not Jesus an extremist for love: “your enemies, bless the, that cure you, do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use and persecute you”. In this biblical allusions Marting Luther King Jr. talks about God being an extremist he does this because does it not just create common ground for everyone who knows those are Gods words but is use effectively to his power. When Marting Luther King calls God an extremist he goes on saying “ the question is not whether we will be an extremist, but what kind of extremist” these two follow after one another because some not all people think it is insane to love your enemies, to bless them because they are bringing you down but people go by it because it is the right thing to do so with that being said Martin Luther King Jr. is claiming he might be considered an “extremist” now for doing something out of the ordinary
In these texts, King effectively persuades his audiences using pathos and logos. In Martin Luther King Jr. – “Letter from Birmingham Jail” he captures both pathos and logos. Dr. King
A twelve year old boy a world away from his parents once wrote in a letter to his parents: “And I have nothing to comfort me, nor is there nothing to be gotten here but sickness and death.” This child was Richard Frethorne, and in “Letter to Father and Mother,” he communicates his desperation caused by the new world’s merciless environment to his parents to persuade them to send food and pay off his accumulated debts from the journey. He accomplishes this with deliberate word choice and allusions to the bible to appeal to ethos, pathos, and logos. Frethorne uses diction, imagery, and facts to create a letter to his parents which aims to garner sympathy for his state of life and to persuade them to send food and pay off his debts.
Have you ever read an article or book that express a lot of sympathy and it made you feel as if you can feel their pain. “The Letter From Birmingham Jail” displays the true meaning of pathos. After reading this” letter” emotions will overflow. Dr. King wrote with so much passion and courage, that it makes his readers feel as if they were part of the movement. He shows his concerns for the African American community by expressing their thoughts and feelings because they feel as if they have no voice.
The Civil rights movement was a long and hard fight for freedom in our nation. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the many people who devoted themselves and fought for the movement. He did it in hope to make the world a better place. Outraged and indignant, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham city jail” addresses the events that took place in the name of freedom. Martin Luther King Jr. reflects on the events, through his use of tone, rhetorical appeals, and rhetorical tools.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a strong leader in the Civil Rights movement, the son and grandson of a minister, and one heck of a letter writer. As he sits in a cell of Birmingham Jail in 1963, he responds to criticism from eight white clergymen. Though this letter was intended for the judgemental and condescending men of high faith, his response touched the hearts and minds of the entire U.S. population, then, and for years to come. In his tear-jerking, mind-opening letter, King manages to completely discredit every claim made by the clergymen while keeping a polite and formal tone. Metaphors, allusions, and rhetorical questions are used in the most skillful way to support his argument and ultimately convince his audience of the credibility behind his emotional, yet factual, claims.
Throughout the text, King utilized the values of his audience to gain sympathy and later on support. His use of diction and syntax would align his mission to God’s, and show that he was in the right and the clergymen were in the wrong. In his letter, King effectively used an extended periodic sentence that consisted of more than 300 words. The sentence has an extreme appeal to pathos, with such vivid imagery
King shows Ethos in his letter by writing back to the clergy men who had objections against King’s protest in Birmingham. They basically called him an outsider but by establishing his credibility, King shows that he is in fact an
The main idea of his speech is that all people were created equal and, although this is no longer the case nowadays, King felt it must be the case for the future. He argued peacefully, yet passionately and powerfully. In preparation for the speech, he studied the Bible, The Gettysburg Address and the US Declaration of Independence and he alludes to all three in his address. The intensity of King’s speech is built through parallelism, metaphors, bold statements and rhythmic repetitions:
King uses tone, literal and figurative language to establish structure and language in his letter. King’s use of tone in his letter was a great way to lay out the foundation of his letter and add structure. In paragraph 2 and 3, King explains in the “hard, brutal and unbelievable facts” of the actions taken toward blacks
MLK states in paragraph 3, “...just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town.” King uses an analogy to give his audience an idea of what he is doing when fighting for civil rights. Lastly, King uses a rhetorical question in his letter. He asks the question on page 278 in paragraph 24, “But is this a logical assertion?” MLK uses this question to make his
- The clergymen because they had good will. Discuss Dr. King’s use of allusions throughout the text. How do they strengthen his argument and underscore his overall message? - In what ways does the “letter” attack the clergymen even when being outwardly deferential towards them?
In “A Letter From A Birmingham Jail” Martin Luther King Jr defends his use of nonviolent protest in order to accomplish racial equality. In the letter, Dr. King uses ethos, diction, and allusions when defending nonviolent protest which makes his argument really strong. His goal is to make the clergymen help him fight racial equality. He uses ethos to build up credibility.
To achieve this, he used rhetorical strategies such as appeal to pathos and repetition. His passionate tone flowed through these strategies, increasing their persuasive power on the people and encouraging them to follow/listen to his message on racial injustice. While pathos elicits an emotional response from the audience to make them more accepting of King’s ideas, repetition structures the speech and emphasizes key ideas for the audience to take away from listening. These two techniques played a crucial role in furthering his purpose and in provoking a powerful response from the audience that made this speech memorable and awe-inspiring. To this day, King’s speech remains one of the most famous and influential speeches in
