Comparison Of Letter From Birmingham Jail And The Perils Of Indifference

Imagine living in a society in which justice isn’t served. Being arrested for protesting, just on helping other citizens in America get the rights that they deserve. In Martin Luther King’s speech “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and “The Perils of Indifference” by Elie Wiesel, Dr. King is the most effective in motivating individuals of America to support him in his efforts against injustice or indifference. One of the many rhetorical devices Dr.King uses was parallelism, in which he organized and pointed out his ideas to the audience. In the letter, Dr. King stated “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” This is an example of parallelism because this rhetoric device allowed his speech to flow and for the audience to understand easier. Dr. King repeats the same phrases or ideas to prove a point that if there is inequality in one area, then it is a threat that justice won’t be accomplished. We as citizens are all connected in some way and if something happens to one person, it affects all citizens as a whole in

In King’s words, “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.” He makes a clear difference between just law and an unjust law. King believes in a law that is higher than a law of man. Logos in this quote evokes that Black Americans are being denied the vote. The audience can understand the point King made about democracy. The rhetorical device of logos helps the audience believe his accurate sources and join him in his