Rhetorical Analysis Of Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream Speech

On August 28, 1963, in Washington, D.C., Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered the prominent speech “I Have a Dream” at the Lincoln Memorial to over 250,000 civil rights supporters. King’s speech was compelling and potent; it moved everyone. Furthermore, he helped change the world where there is justice. He believed in the equality between whites and blacks and died believing it. In addition, he strongly believes freedom exists for the blacks. He states, “[The white’s] destiny is tied up with [the black’s] destiny.” This quote emphasizes the problem of injustice in this world, and it makes the audience move into action. King’s speech was widely known, due to the effective tone he creates throughout his speech. His use of literary tropes and syntactical schemes help make this formidable tone. King’s speech influences the whites and blacks to listen by using extensive anaphora, metaphor, and diction to create a tone of necessity in his “I Have a Dream” speech.

King uses multiple anaphora to help set a persuasive tone of necessity. One example of an anaphora in this speech is the repetition of “One hundred years later...” to emphasize the injustice in this world. King states, “But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly
King calls upon the African American with phrases like, “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred” to emphasize the fact that he understands how simple it is to be filled with “bitterness” and “hatred.” Also, he doesn’t want others to suffer from hatred and be sucked in with the non-supporters of the civil rights. Another viewpoint is he doesn’t want people to take the shorter road out to get freedom. He wants both blacks and whites to be able to hold hands together and greet each other without malevolence and