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A letter from a birmingham jail analysis
Critical analysis of the letter of birmingham jail
The importance of rhetorics
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During the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King, Jr. fought to end racism through peaceful protesting. He points this out in his speeches and more specifically in his book Stride Towards Freedom. King is trying to persuade his audience to act with nonviolent resistance in order to make a change. To persuade his audience he describes acquiescence, violence, and nonviolent resistance: these are the three ways of dealing with oppression. As he describes these three ways of dealing with oppression, he also uses them to highlight rhetorical devices such as ethos, pathos, and logos.
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.
Prompt: How did Martin Luther King, Jr. craft his language in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” to motivate the clergymen to join the fight for equal rights? Martin Luther King Jr. crafted his language using differing rhetorical appeals in order to vary the way he motivated his audience to join the fight for equal rights so America would no longer be separated half and half like it was during the civil war. In his letter from Birmingham jail Martin Luther King Jr. crafted his logical language via the use of counterarguments and the way he refuted them. In paragraph six King mentioned the four steps to a nonviolent campaign.
If a person was in jail for peacefully protesting against an injustice in society, only to have their cause attacked and ridiculed by white religious leaders in the city’s religious community, would the person write a moving and inspirational speech in response? Martin Luther King Jr. did in his speech, “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. In his letter, King gives the counterargument of the time was right to take direct action in Birmingham and that King had all the reason to be there. King furthers this purpose by developing and refining claims that strongly support his position against his fellow clergymen’s beliefs through the use of rhetorical devices such as imagery, metaphors, pathos, logos, ethos, and others.
Another rhetorical appeal that Dr. King used is
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”. Several great documents are filled with methods of persuasion in order to effectively persuade the audience, one being the Letter From Birmingham Jail as well as The Truly Awe-Inspiring Accomplishments of Martin Luther King Jr. In the Letter From Birmingham Jail, King supports his view that the civil rights movement is necessary by using strategic organization to overthrow opposing arguments. He also engages the audience by captivating them emotionally, allowing him to have a better chance of getting them on his side.
King first shows the intended audience why exactly he is writing this letter then builds on his previous experiences and intentions. In very first paragraph he says that because of the criticisms that the clergyman wrote were “sincerely set forth”(214) that he decided to write the letter. He then uses his position as President of the SCLU to explain that he is in Birmingham “because injustice is here”(214). After fully explaining why he is there he builds into his support and leadership of direct action to help end discrimination. Direct action is the first step after negotiations fail to get support for a cause, mainly civil rights.
Letter from a Birmingham Jail Introduction My group chose to use the “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr as our rhetorical situation because it was an essential document for progress of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Dr. King wrote the letter in response to the eight, white clergymen who publicly called his actions to improve the lives of African-Americans in Birmingham, Alabama “unwise and untimely” (King, 2000, pge.263). Considering that Dr. King was dealing with an ambiguous audience, white moderates who were somewhat against segregation, but favored order rather than justice.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the biggest players in the Civil Rights Movement and he wrote/spoke two famous works, his “I have a Dream” speech and his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” of which both had a different purpose and audience. He used different rhetorical techniques depending on the purpose and the audience that he is targeting with the work such as Logos (Logic) and Pathos (Passion). In Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech his purpose is to encourage people to keep peacefully protesting and not to lose hope or start getting violent. The audience that he speaks to are Civil Rights supporters that want equal rights for all races.
While in solitary confinement for nearly 8 days, reverend and social justice activist, Martin Luther King Jr., wrote his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail in response to the criticism he received for his non-violent protests. Several clergy who negatively critiqued King’s approach of seeking justice, wrote A Call for Unity, arguing that his protests were senseless and improper. Within the article, the clergymen provide nine different critiques that asserted how King’s protest are invalid, uneffective, and simply unintelligent in the fight for obtaining justice and equity for individuals of color. His letter has become one of the most profound pieces of literature of the 20th century, as King uses vivid examples and eloquent rhetorical devices to counter all nine arguments.
Amidst the intense Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and put in solitary confinement for peacefully protesting racial discrimination and injustice in Birmingham, Alabama. It was during this time that Dr. King, refusing to sit idly by, wrote his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” one of the most inspiring documents in history. With his respectful nature, humility, compassion, optimism, and determination, King responded to a group of white Alabama clergymen who had condemned the civil rights protests as extreme in their open letter, “A Call for Unity.” Although his letter was directed towards a small group of eight men, his words eventually reached the minds and hearts of the entire country. Throughout the letter, Dr. King does a tremendous job of supporting his argument with the three elements of Aristotle’s rhetorical appeal.
Unlike King’s letter, he does not use a rhetorical question in his speech. This is because it is a speech and he wants his audience to have an emotional appeal, rather that a logical appeal. He wants to have an emotional appeal becauses he is trying to push his audience to fight for civil rights. Martin Luther King Jr. uses rhetorical devices in his
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.
Shortly afterwards he was both criticized and applauded for his actions in the protest. During this time, King decided to write a letter to address those who questioned his actions. In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King effectively used the rhetorical strategy of describing to achieve his purpose of defending his reason for protesting, a model that can be applied to the upcoming portfolio project. Rhetorical Strategy In his letter, King uses several rhetorical strategies, however one that stood out to me if the strategy of describing.
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
