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Rhetorical Analysis Of Letter From Birmingham Jail

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Letter to Birmingham Rhetorical Analysis A young, timid girl named Ruby Bridges looks determinedly at the school that would change her life. Her eyes scan the school yard as the ferocious monsters begin to swarm her entrance towards equality, and their eyes fill with anger and disgust as they take in her appearance. She takes a shaky breath as she walks calmly past the monsters who yell names and throw food to deter her from her mission. However, she ignores their insults and continues her walk towards freedom. Similarly, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote “Letter from Birmingham Jail” to communicate the unfair treatment being directed at African Americans. This letter was written because of his arrest for breaking the Alabama injunction against …show more content…

Throughout King’s letter, he incorporated different rhetorical appeals, such as pathos, to make the audience understand the harsh treatment African Americans were subjected to each day. In his letter King emphasized, “But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick, and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society... (King 3).” This piece of evidence describes the brutality that was …show more content…

One way that he conveyed this idea was by using personification. In his letter King wrote, “As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us (King 2).” King used personification to exemplify their struggles and disappointment that appeared regularly while fighting for equality. This use of figurative language exposes the audience to their struggle for freedom. Although “a shadow of deep disappointment” doesn’t directly fall upon the Black community, it let the clergymen know that their neglect towards fulfilling their promise of removing humiliating sins had deeply crushed the Black community. It can also illustrate the rhetorical appeal pathos because it brings a somber mood onto the audience. It provided them with a sense of guilt and shame for their inability to speak up for equality. This paragraph describes how personification helps to portray King’s theme of equality and equal

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