Rhetorical Devices Used In I Have A Dream Speech

“I Have A Dream” by Martin Luther King Jr. argues for the rights of black people. He declares that white people need to remove the harsh treatments that restrict the black people from living a normal, first-class citizen lifestyle. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks in an authoritative tone that signifies that changes must be made to the black people, and he clearly speaks for every single black person that lives in the land of the free. Martin Luther King Jr. effectively justifies his argument that black people need to be treated like everyone else through ethos, pathos, and logos. First, Martin Luther King Jr. uses ethos to confirm that what he is saying is justified.

One of the main reasons that this is referred to as a rhetoric is the fact that it was written by Martin Luther King in an intellectual and inventive way not just for the

Martin Luther King Jr. was a pivotal member in the Civil Rights movement and was an advocate for peaceful protest to gain equality. The March on Washington was held on August 28, 1963 and was a crucial event in the Civil Rights Movement in which King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. His speech displayed how one could protest peacefully, whilst, his audience, the American people, absorbed the message whole-heartedly due to his use of rhetorical devices. The purpose of King’s speech was to broadcast to the American people that they should protest peacefully instead of protesting with violence.

This helps build the central idea because it is the main backbone for the central idea. One rhetorical device used is aullison, MLK make a reference to the Gettysburg Address by stating, “ Five score years ago,” (King 2). He also uses metaphors, one example of a metaphor he uses is,”... America has given

Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech led to a transformation in American beliefs and culture with regard to civil rights. On August 28, 1963, King delivered his speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial in hopes that the man known as the “Great Emancipator” would remind the public that African Americans were protesting to receive rights that they should have already been granted. Martin Luther King Jr. utilized a plethora of rhetorical devices in order to project an effective speech onto an audience immersed by his plea for equal rights. Dr. King envisioned a United States of America in which African Americans were not forced to endure unconstitutional trials and tribulations. As he stated in his speech, King dreamed of a nation where “…they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but on the content of their character.”

More than 50 years ago, Martin Luther King held the memorable speech “I have a dream”. His impressive rhetoric demanded racial justice, which became a basis for subsequent generations of black Americans. His words have later been used to achieve a better understanding of the social and political upheaval at the time. The main point of the speech is that all people are created equal and although not the case in America at the time, Martin Luther King felt that it should be the case in the future. The audience of the speech is considered very general, however, the speech was held in Washington meaning it is possible that the speech was an attempt to engage law and policy makers who work in the nation’s capital.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the most important leaders of the civil rights movement. He graduated from a segregated high school at the age of fifteen and earned a bachelor degree at a segregated institution in Atlanta in 1948. King was known to be a strong civil rightist, and he was part of the committee known as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. On August 28, 1963, King presented his well-known speech, “I Have a Dream,” during The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom for Africans’ civil and economic rights. His “I Had a Dream” speech was known as the most influential speech that has tremendously impacted the United States forever by its powerful rhetorics and the emotional connection to the audience.

In “I Have A Dream”, Martin Luther King Jr. persuades people to treat black with the equal rights as whites have. Not to make blacks superior, but to their be peace among blacks and whites. I found this speech the most compelling because he made everyone believe that his dream could become reality. His dream was that black and whites living as equals, with no rivalries between them. Even though he was assassinated, people still continued trying to make his dream real, which was really inspiring for everyone.

Uses of rhetorical devices in “I Have a Dream” Speech Have you ever wondered what Martin Luther King Jr. would say if he saw us now? He would say, “Good Job.” Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was given out on August 28, 1963, and was also meant for diverse men of race, religion and ethnic group to be the audience. Dr. King used metaphors, allusions, and repetition in his speech to try to better convey with the audience to try to make a difference.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was an extremely impactful activist during the Civil Rights Movement that gave over 2,500 speeches in his lifetime. Of these speeches, his most popular is his famous I Have a Dream speech that he gave on August 28, 1963 in Washington, D.C. during the March on Washington. Even famous speakers like Martin Luther King, Jr. use persuasive techniques to appeal to the different sides of their audiences. In order to appeal to his predominately African American audience, Martin Luther King, Jr. makes reference to Abraham Lincoln and his granting freedom to slaves by signing the Emancipation Proclamation.

During the era of the civil rights movements in the 60s, among the segregation, racism, and injustice against the blacks, Martin Luther King Jr. stood at the Lincoln Memorial to deliver one of the greatest public speeches for freedom in that decade. In Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech he effectively uses ethos, diction and powerful metaphors to express the brutality endured by African American people. Yet his most important method of reaching his audience, and conveying his enduring message of equality and freedom for the whole nation was his appeal to pathos. With these devices, King was able to move thousands of hearts and inspire the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Opening his speech Martin Luther King Jr. sets up his credibility with his use of ethos, referring to the Declaration of Independence saying, “This note was a promise that all men… would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life.”

Marx believed that the class struggle forced social change. Marx’s theory is based on a class system

In his essay Bakhtin provides an analysis of the relationship between individual utterances and the ideologically charged forces that affect them, he writes: “The dialogic interaction of a word among other words (of all kinds and degrees of otherness) creates new and significant artistic potential in discourse, creates the potential for a distinctive art of prose, which has found its fullest and deepest expression in the novel.” (275) i.e. there are dialogic relations between the narrator and the writer, the author and the character, the story and other stories, culture and text and society and text. A novel is in fact characterized by heteroglossiawhere many voices (writer, character, society) are mixed which gives originality to the text.

Holland Arrowsmith explains Marxism as a term which refers to “a hugely diverse set of social, economic, philosophical, historical and cultural theories”. Several theories such as social, economical, political and critical theories have been derived from Marxism philosophy. Marxism advocates equality amongst the class structure of society. Marxism is divided into two fundamental classes. According to Marx there are only two classes which exist: Bourgeoisie, which means powerful or dominant class and Proletariat, which means the peasant or working classes.

Marxism is defined by the Merriam Webster dictionary as ‘’the political, economic, and social theories of Karl Marx including the belief that the struggle between social classes