I Have A Dream Rhetorical Analysis

“I have a dream,” by Martin Luther King, Jr. is a public speech he gave on August 28, 1963 in front of the Lincoln Memorial, one hundred years after Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation. The purpose of this speech was an order for equality for all Americans, disregarding skin color. He reminds the audience that 100 years have passed since Lincoln freeing all African-American slaves, but a little has only changed. Martin Luther King, Jr. uses the techniques of repetition, ethos and pathos to convey the theme of equality.

Firstly, Martin Luther King, Jr. uses repetition for emphasis on certain key points as one of his techniques. He uses anaphora by repeating the words “I have a Dream” at the beginning of clauses and sentences. "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed" (King, 3). He uses the repetition for this phrase as an appeal of connecting with the audience and to pathos. The title of this speech “I have a Dream,” was possibly named from his use of anaphora throughout the entire speech. Each repetition builds up to the next one. “We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro 's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one…”