Words: 573
Martin Luther King uses a plethora of rhetorical devices and strategies throughout his speech about freedom, often tying in certain opinions or emotions to them. Three specific strategies he uses are, his diction, his use of metaphors and devices which cast freedom into a good light, and his use of metaphors and rhetorical devices tying dark things to oppression, thus portraying the current lack of freedoms and liberties in a decidedly bad light.
Martin Luther King uses fairly simple vocabulary for the most part, except for the times where he delves into metaphors about freedom, beginning to use more complex words, before again returning to a simple vocabulary. Also, every time he refers to personal freedoms, liberties, or civil rights he uses larger, more complicated words, as well as rhetorical devices to make such things look good or appealing. He does the opposite for oppression and segregation, using words and devices that describe the oppression and segregation as horrible crimes against humanity, while pointing out how slow the U. S. Is to remedy these large issues.
These things give a very clear message about his opinion on freedom, showing how very much he obviously valued it, and at the same time showing his contempt and desire to change the injustices his people were suffering. Many times throughout his speech he writes about and refers to personal freedoms and civil rights, each time supporting his beliefs with a well written rhetorical device to help the reader understand just how important these things were. He uses a large number of allusions to the bible, the constitution, and other famous documents which show his learning as well as emphasize his arguments and ideas.
MLK also uses imagery to color his arguments, with his “palace of justice”, “majestic heights”, “plane of dignity”, and other images, all of which serve to entice the reader to see his side, his point of view, rather than the point that everyone else saw, the status quo. Finally, King also uses negative ideas, images, and concepts, to reinforce his ideas, making the things he attempted to portray as looking good even better, by making the alternative, look even worse. After all, the day seems the brightest after the darkest night.
It’s when referring to civil injustices and the things his people have suffered, that King creates the sadder, grimmer, darker feelings and images. Saying things like “… America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds. “, he skillfully picks something all or most Negros can relate to, being poor. He shows the injustices the have suffered as a storm the must be weathered, with images such as being “staggered by the winds of polices brutality”, and “storms of persecution. Martin Luther King uses all these things to show the world how he feels about the situation, showing how he thinks of these things as unspeakable crimes against humanity, as horrid things that no one should need suffer in this day and age. MLK used more rhetorical devices than could be fit in a college text book, and states his position against segregation more clearly and loudly than a thunderbolt. Every sentence he wrote is loaded with positive rhetorical devices showing his support for civil rights, negative ones showing the injustice of segregation, and an amazing choice of diction to state everything in the clearest way possible.