Doctor Martin Luther King Junior was an expert in persuading his audience. He was a massive advocate for the civil rights movement, and when he saw the injustice being served to the African American community during the Vietnam war, he had to take a stand. In his passage, "Beyond Vietnam- A time to break silence", he uses the rhetorical devices of logos, pathos and ethos to to strengthen his argument for why American involvement in the Vietnam war was unjust. The technique of logos, using logic to persuade an audience, is seen many times throughout this passage. one example can be seen with "We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem." In this passage, he is explaining how it isn't fair that these men were being stolen from their homes and being forced to fight for people in other countries to have rights that the soldiers didn't have in their own homes. In this way, …show more content…
King was discriminated against all of his life. Because of this obstacle, he needed to find a way to appeal to everyone, regardless of race. He decided to use pathos. Pathos is the idea of appealing to man's empathy, a trait that can be found in nearly everyone. Pathos can be seen with, "Perhaps a more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population." This demonstrates pathos as he explains that people of all races are dying, but the African American community is dying at a much higher rate. This passage makes people of all walks of life look at the people they have lost in this war and understand what this community is going
In a speech Rev. Martian Luther King Jr. gave to the Riverside Church in New York City, King conveyed his beliefs on the horrific atrocities currently present in the Vietnam War. King began by stating that no longer Vietnam was a oversea issues, "Vietnam [had to be brought] into the field of my moral vision". Likewise, King stated the issues at home such as the overwhelming majority of the nation's poor were fighting in the Vietnam War. In King's mindset, a nation that held it self on the acclaim that all men are created equal, was in fact not equal. King uses a variety of persuasive elements including, but not limited to: concrete examples and analysis, a robust tone, and powerful rhetoric. While King was only one voice out of many of those who were on both sides of the war, King still managed to change others views about politics through the usage of his persuasive elements. In all, King posses a natural eloquence that allows him to spread his message far and wide with the hopes that America will never forget the testatrices that took place at home and oversea during the Vietnam War.
The Author of the passage is debating, whether student athletes should be awarded monetary compensation for their contribution to teams that garner millions of dollars for universities. The author uses appeal to Logos and Pathos to build his argument on the subject, and to help persuade the reader to agree with the the argument they are trying to make.
Another appeal for pathos is King’s repetition and his reference to how African American people have no rights,
With the people of The United States of America categorized as the audience, King speaks to people of all races and ethnicity. This discriminated audience included the grasping appeals to the ethos, pathos, and logos. As each appeal is fully informed of the rhetorical purpose, King finds a way to encourage all three. Through several metaphors and types of imagery, he makes the decision to speak to all of the appeals in order to accomplish to need for change. Clearly aimed directly at the hearts of blacks and making the whites feel ashamed of their actions brought together a turn in society as they knew it. This specific structure geared towards the audience was the main reason why King impacted Americans across the country and not just at the march. These different appeals mixed within the audience to help King influence his purpose of racial equality as each type of person could relate to his moving words.
Along with logos and ethos strategies, King uses pathos to cause declarative imagery and false flattery. King understands why those who haven’t been hurt by segregation “but when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your
Martin Luther King Jr. was a man who genuinely knew how to capture his audiences with his words. In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” makes an appeal to his reader about the injustices that have been set in place by the oppressor. In the letter he talks about numerous things, mortal authority in Christian communities, American ideas, and the suffering of the African American community. Dr. King uses logos to persuade the reader why he s protesting in the first place because the oppressor has broken the negotiation between the whites and the African American. His logical argument to why the ideal way to proceed with non-violent protests is because of the political decisions that have been made. An example he brings up is the idea of there being just and unjust laws in America and as citizens those unjust should be deliberately disobeyed. Dr. King says, “Conversely, one has a mortal responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all” he soon starts to define what both type of laws means…”A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law…An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the mortal law.” In order to persuade his reader about the idea he has do more than engage with the readers emotions. By Dr. King defining what the difference between the two laws sets a more conceiving idea of the treatment towards African American. Martin Luther King basic point is unjust laws do not just hurt the one being oppressed but also the one doing the oppressing. This is more of logos appeal for the reason he is not trying to connect with the reader emotionally but rather make sure the reader understands his cause for the protests.
As Meredith Grey, my fictional idol from Grey’s anatomy would say, “Progress looks like a bunch of failures”. A main focus of this semester was learning our audience, and convincing people of things through writing and or visuals using ethos pathos and or logos. I did not see the connections of any of my papers from the first to second semester at first. But my memoir from the first semester and my campaign project from this semester both use pathos, emotion. For me it was easiest to write about the pathos, but the ethos and logos part was out of my reach. I left some of my comfort writing the campaign paper using all 3 and it gave me a better understanding as a writer to keep in mind who am I talking to, what message am I trying to get across
King heavily implied pathos for the readers and listeners to get a strong sense of emotion for what blacks were going through, the major moments of pathos in "Letter from Birmingham Jail" come in the parts about the suffering of the African American community. In order for Dr. King's argument to make sense, you have to understand why the situation is unjust. So, Dr. King provides a vivid picture of what Black Americans have to go through in the segregated South, their day to day lives, what the black community is permitted and not permitted to do. Through this very visual narration he provides multiple examples where his words tug on your heart, and makes the reader put themselves in Dr. Kings shoes, or the other victims of segregation’s shoes. King tries to place this audience into the shoes of the black people by giving vivid descriptions of the trials they have been going through and invoke empathy in their hearts. He says: "When she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness towards white people.” He implies the idea of white mother and fathers having to explain the segregation concept to their young kids, it is something good parents would loathe to do. Another example includes, “lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright
In his "Letter," Martin Luther King Jr.'s ability to effectively use pathos, or to appeal to the emotions of his audiences, is evident in a variety of places. More particularly in paragraph fourteen, King demonstrates his ability to inspire his fellow civil rights activists, invoke empathy in the hearts of white moderates, and create compassion in the minds of the eight clergyman to which the "Letter" is directed.
Pathos is the appeal to emotions. The major moments of pathos in "Letter from Birmingham Jail" comes in the parts about the suffering of the African American community. King wrote, “when your first name becomes nigger”, which “nigger” is a powerful and insulting word. He also stated, “Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society.” African Americans were treated horrendously, and he addresses his pain throughout the whole letter, not just a mere statement. This continued application of pathos throughout the entire letter shows his audience just how bad the situation was. By continually bringing the suffering and inequality to the eyes of the audience, King is able to effectively make his audience realize how big of an impact the inequality has on the African American
On a normal day at the public transit Rachel North was heading to work, but there was a strange feeling in the air. Moments after the train trundled off a powerful gust knocked Rachel to the ground and everything went dark. When Rachel regained consciousness she noticed people scattered about the transit car. She felt warm and wet. Rachel took a brief moment before realizing she was covered in someone’s blood.
The appeal of pathos is used in this article to evoke the emotions of the readers. There's different kinds of emotions the readers can feel from reading this article. she uses examples to strengthen the main idea and also to bring out the emotion. In the beginning of her Introduction she uses the word "slaughter" which reveals a terrifying scene on the reader's mind. She then gives examples of the type of crime juvenile committed, murdering, raping, and assaulting someone with harmful weapon.
King creates an enforced emotional appeal to the audience by using pathos, and he makes the audience feel empathy for the way that whites have treated non-whites for over a century.
One of Dr. King's most influential devices is his pristine use of repetition in order to drill his points across and reel the audience in. He goes on by describing the poor conditions faced by African Americans due to segregation that is ultimately at the fault of the government. Also showing how their African brothers are being taken away to fight for a country that does not see them as equals. His use of repetition is seen in statements such as: “...their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die…” and, “For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence….” Dr. King intends to stress the idea of this injustice in order to rally the people against the lack of civil rights by humanizing the countless African Americans who had died fighting for a nation that will not fight for them.
King is able to unify the protesters, encourage them to rise up together, and defeat the atrocity of racism by alluding to their anguish through personification and imagery. For example, King recognizes that “the nation is sick”(King 2). King assigns human qualities to the nation in order to comment on the offenses committed against the African Americans by the people of the nation. These offenses remind the audience of their common struggle and unify them. In doing so, King reveals that this is an issue but it can be resolved and the audience can heal the nation as they would a human being. Imagery in King’s speech also develops the intensity of the distress African Americans face. To illustrate, King describes “thirteen hundred of God’s children here suffering, sometimes going hungry, going through dark and dreary nights” (King 4). This gut-wrenching image causes the audience to feel immense sorrow and anguish for the African Americans depicted. These emotions are uniform in every member of the audience and thus unites them on an emotional level. A pathetic appeal is integrated into King’s argument to stop this pain and