Rhetorical Analysis Of Letter From Birmingham Jail

Through words and literary devices, language allows people to express beliefs to their audiences. During the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. utilizes language to encourage his audience to take action against segregation, especially the white moderates, who are his biggest hurdle in achieving his goals. In his famous letter, "Letter from Birmingham Jail," King uses metaphors, rhetorical questions, and allusions to create pathos and ethos, while discussing his dissatisfaction concerning the white moderates, who wish to minimize the urgency for action in the battle for equality.
King describes the white moderates through metaphors reflecting instability and ineffectiveness to show their interference in the nation's progress.

King compels his fellow clergymen to take charge of the national situation and disregard race. He knows it is time to “lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity” (7). Quicksand is deceitful and represents the struggle that racial injustice causes, and the comparison of quicksand and solid rock shows how vital stability is for society to function. The white moderates King address are the main obstacle to achieving his goal, and he says they are "the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress" (6). The purpose of a dam is to establish stability, but King describes the white moderates as “dangerously structured” which makes them more of a hindrance than help. The river flows whether the unstable dam stops it or not, which

White moderates argue that King’s actions trigger violence, despite their peaceful nature. King responds confidently, “But is this a logical assertion? Isn’t this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery?” (7). King’s application of rhetorical questions makes the audience question the legitimacy of the white moderates claim because King challenges their illogical logic. He gives an example of injustice through blaming the victim when society abuses Jesus and Socrates, who improve the world spiritually and intellectually. Questioning a spiritual figure and scholarly leader causes the audience to question the legitimacy of the white moderates’ logic because they doubt the audience’s beliefs. King cannot control how others react to his protests, but he can continue to try and improve the world through his own methods. Some white moderates find King to be an extremist and consider his protests unnecessary. King compels his religious audience by mentioning the different kind of extremes and how people choose their paths. He asks, “So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love?” (9). King addresses the religious soul in the clergymen to tell them that he is an extremist, but through love for