What Is The Diction In Letter From Birmingham Jail

Our Distorted Reflection Growing up, I dreaded going to school. People shouting at me, people pointing at me, snickering at me. Never being ordinary. I would get home and go to the bathroom, staring at myself in the mirror, tasting salt water on the tip of my lips. Wondering why I couldn’t fit in with everyone else. Wondering why nobody wanted to be my friend, coming to the realization that I had to endure all of this because of one simple thing: my skin color. A dark side of the nation reared its ghastly head in the 1950s and 60’s. Segregation and discrimination teemed in the streets. Martin Luther King Jr. captured that monstrosity in 1963 in Letter from a Birmingham Jail, utilizing devices such as diction, pathos, and metaphors to convey

Martin Luther King Jr. used negative diction throughout the Letter from a Birmingham Jail to make the reader feel just as strongly about the situation as he did, and to inform the reader about how detrimental segregation made them feel. Nobody likes being held down, the feeling of being held down makes you feel like you’re diminutive or not enough. On page two paragraph nine, Martin Luther King Jr. integrated the word “bogged” into the letter. (Letter from a Birmingham Jail). Bogged was used to describe the effortless attempt they made to get a voice and make a change, that they just couldn't make. They were being held down, with no way to get up. War is a tragic thing. Internal war is the most defective thing. Distorting how you see yourself or what you think of yourself. Activist, Martin Luther King Jr., used the word, “anarchy” (Paragraph 18, Letter from a Birmingham Jail). He used this to let the reader know just how serious the predicament perpetrated and deformed African American lives. Segregation reflects itself as anarchy, and it was an anarchy that couldn't be defeated at the time. Chagrin can be an

Martin Luther King Jr. used pathos to enhance how strongly he felt about discrimination and try to get across to the clergymen he wrote the letter to. Hope is something everyone should have, it gives you something to look for. In page two paragraph seven, it says “..our hopes have been blasted..” This emphasized that everything they wished for had been destroyed and they had nothing else to look forward too. Friends are something we all have, but sometimes they aren’t always who they say they are. They hide behind a mirrored image of themselves; Behind someone everyone else wants them to be. Martin Luther King Jr. referenced the clergymen as being “My friends..” (Paragraph 1, Letter from a Birmingham Jail). Martin Luther King Jr. did this to show the clergymen that he wasn’t irate with them. He wanted them to know that he just wants them to comprehend his point on segregation and what they have to encounter everyday, and at least try to understand where he is coming from. Once you say something over and over again in grave detail, people start to get a mental image and can imagine going through that. In paragraph thirteen page two, Martin Luther King Jr. said, “..when you…”(Letter from a Birmingham Jail) and continues on to describe something a minority had to go through back at the time. He used this to paint a mental image of the type of discrimination and