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An Analysis Of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter From Birmingham Jail

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Equal rights protester Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “now is the time to make real the promise of democracy, and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood.” In 1963, King was arrested for protesting in Birmingham and was put in jail. During that period, he had a lot of spare time and wrote a long and powerful letter full of stylistic elements to church leaders in Birmingham who had criticized him for leading a protest. They made public statements opposing King and his methods for achieving change, but King believed that they misjudged his cause and ways of doing. Martin Luther King, Jr. uses many stylistic elements including convincing examples and keen figurative language to influence his reader to agree with his point in "Letter from Birmingham Jail." …show more content…

Including this example, “now is the time to make real the promise of democracy, and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood.” Moving on, when King used convincing examples, he made the church and every reader in the following years acknowledge that something had to be done. King describes negative effects that segregation still has with usage of convincing examples. Additionally, Martin Luther King also uses many examples of figurative language to persuade viewer’s opinions of his cause. His metaphors and similes bring importance to his letter because they describe an inside look and feel on the effects of unequal rights that the church and readers have not ever seen before. In the end, Martin Luther King Jr. fought and died, to bring people of all color equal rights; his words with stylistic influence made a big impact on the United State’s society issues. Can you do anything to bring justice using your words? With an excellent vocabulary and a creative mind, you can write for a good cause and bring change just as Martin Luther King

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