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Malcolm then become an activist to seek rights for blacks, he shared many ideas during this speech which proved to be right. The speech itself was one of the most literate speeches ever given to a large crowd and was ranked 7th best of the top 1 00 American speeches. Malcolm deliberately used rhetorical terms, figurative language, and smart ideas to enhance the speech itself with the ideas that accompany it. Rhetorical terms such as antithesis, synecdoche and so on were used to empower the speech itself into making people consider it.
Figurative Language like similes and metaphors also took place during the speech to enhance his ideas. His ideas were lined up and organized with a way a problem and a solution to conclude hem in each one. Analyzing the speech itself may give more in depth material about him, about the conditions of the blacks, about the goals he set for, and even about his use of language. Many rhetorical terms were use in “The Ballot or The Bullet” that strengthened the connection of the speech to the audience. The terms were used with such profoundness, the speech was held up by their richness.
One of these terms is the anaphora, examples of this are like “behave must understand the politics of our community and we must know what politics is supposed to produce. We must know what part politics play in our lives. The repetition of the phrase “we must” at the beginning of every clause/statement makes this an anaphora. Another example is “But if we keep our religion at home, keep our religion in the closet, keep our religion between ourselves and our God” Repeating these phrases over and over clarify the idea that Malcolm is providing. Hypoxia is also used in this context, for example “And then what happens?
The community in which you live becomes a slum. It becomes a ghetto. The conditions become run down. ” By providing a question then responding back at it in the same context. This is usually used o provide a problem and solution or a cause and effect. The use of parallelism is present such as “control the housing, control the education, control the jobs, control the businesses,” The same grammatical structure of a verb before the noun, this is used to reinforced the specific idea that the speaker wants to ensure and keep the audience’s attention.
Polystyrene takes place too, for example “lead astray, or deceived or maneuvered” The repetitive use of conjunctions such as “Or”, the excessive use Of the conjunction makes the targeted audience feel overwhelmed by the amount of actions that take place after the conjunction. It is also used to build up a sense of tension or speed up the pace of the speaker. The effective use of antithesis is used to contrast two different ideas, such as “if we bring up religion we’ll have differences; we’ll have arguments; and iv??al never be able to get together.
But if we keep our religion at home, keep our religion in the closet, keep our religion between ourselves and our God, but when we come out here, we have a fight that’s common to all of us against a [sic] enemy who is common to all of us. ” The contrast of two ideas here is that if the people involve religion they will fight and not agree on an opinion, but if they put aside religion they may work together and find out the real common enemy. This use of antithesis unites the people to notice the true enemy.
Malcolm uses the apostrophe term in a short but smart way, in this example “So we’re trapped, trapped, double-trapped, triple-trapped. ” This use of the word “trapped” at the end of every clause builds up on the phrase before it, creating a rhythm that grabs the audiences’ attention. The rhetorical question is very basic term but has a bigger meaning behind the simplicity. Malcolm incorporates this term in his speech, for example ‘Why you run it down yourself when you take your dollar Out. ” This gets the audience to think for a solution to this unsolved question that the speaker couldn’t provide.
It creates a unity, uniting the whole audience, including the speaker, to think for a solution. Oxymoron adds this flavor to the speech, gives a sense of personality to the speech, keeping the audience from boring or reconsidering the information said. An example of this in “The Ballot or The Bullet” is “knowing that your eyes are too far open” The two words aren’t compatible gather if thought in with logic, far cannot be open; but when put together, they have a more meaningful definition. In this case, this oxymoron means to be naive.
Synecdoche is when one word represents a bigger idea. This is used in a very indirect way during the speech, for example “take their money and spend it with The Man” The man is the synecdoche here, it represents the white government and industry rather than just a man. The rhetorical terms during this presentation were thoroughly thought out and put together to grab the audiences’ attention, expand ideas, and add a personality to the wording without keeping it bland. The figurative language is another aspect that adds life and keeps “The Ballot or The Bullet” memorable.
Each term is unique in its own way which makes the speech seem literate for people to take into consideration and follow. First is alliteration, this figurative language is located in the title itself of the speech, “The Ballot or The Bullet”. The repetition of a sound at the beginning of one or two words keeps the text rich and catchy. Another example of this is “supporting black business, but the black… ” Metaphors were also used, such as “It started out just a little rat race type operation. ” By impairing the business to a rat race shows how competitive the people were that lead them to success.
He uses the smiles such as “They come to us as fighters in some other category. ” Malcolm comes with comparing Christian ministers to fighters that are opposing the white opposition against black communities. He also uses personification in very subtle ways such as “heart of Harlem”. These examples of figurative language add little detail, which prove the literacy of the speech giver. Malcolm X tackles many ideas during his speech, they reflect conflicts and solutions to these conflicts. One of his biggest ideas was Black Nationalism; his meant that the black community as a whole must partake in their own community.
The nationalism movement was split into two parts, political and economic. The “political philosophy’ of Black Nationalism was to participate in their communities politically. They shouldn’t vote for the white men to get involved in their community and ruin it with their scams, but vote for a trustworthy person from the same community. Instead, a black man must learn the political ways of this white man and politics to lead his community independently. Examples for this idea are “The political philosophy of Black Nationalism only means that the black man should control the politics and the politicians in his own community. And also Me must understand the politics of Our community and We must know what politics is supposed to produce. ” The second part is the “economic philosophy’ of Black Nationalism, this means that a black man should participate economically in his community. Since the white man wouldn’t let you come in his community economically and open shops then that black man should do the same towards the whites to stop them from the stealing of money and corruption. They should reeducate each other to stop from becoming poor or else they loud live in slums and ghettos.
A reference to this could be “You would never You can’t open up a black store in a white community. White men won’t even patronize you. ” And “So our people not only have to be reeducated to the importance of supporting black business”. Malcolm supports other ideas like him being a Muslim Minister but is exactly represented like any other minister. “I’m a Muslim minister. The same as they are Christian Ministers, I’m a Muslim minister. ” These are the many ideas that he states in this section of “The Ballot or The Bullet” that he has been trying to innocent to with the minds of the audience.