The Rhetorical Analysis Of The Hope Speech By Harvey Milk

Due to the increasingly negative view of homosexuality in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, the LGBTQ community was facing a world altering decision; they could either shrink into the background, and allow the world to continue to draw its opinions based on speculation, or claim the spotlight and allow themselves to be judged based on their own merit. Harvey Milk, “the first openly gay elected official in the United States” (Hope Speech, Commentary) saw a need for an uprising of the latter. When addressing a crowd of his supporters and the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ) people in “The Hope Speech” at San Francisco City Hall on Gay Freedom Day in 1978, Harvey Milk uses the I-You/Us-Them relationships as defined by Martin Buber, pathos appeals, and shared experiences to establish an emotional bond with the LGBTQ community. This relationship of comradery and mentorship, deeply rooted in shared values, best prepared the crowd to absorb his message of activism and hope.

Another appeal for pathos is King’s repetition and his reference to how African American people have no rights,

People are all the same. It does not matter if you are white, black, rich, or poor. We are all the same. B: In the ‘’I Have a Dream’’ speech MLK uses ethos, pathos, and logos. Ethos is the speaker’s credibility with the audience, Logos uses logic, and Pathos is what appeals to the readers or audiences emotions. T: The most important appeal the Martin Luther King Jr uses is pathos, which is shown when he talks about how one hundred years later the negro is still not free, Its time to rise up from segregation, and I have a dream.

In a fitting model of a persuasive speech, the movie Any Given Sunday includes a key speech, “Inch by Inch”, given by Al Pacino’s character. The speech is given to a team of football players in need of encouragement to face an intimidating game. The structure of his speech, his confidence in delivering it, and inspirational references to his own life makes the speech motivational and inspiring to the directed audience. This persuasion is a perfect example of ethos, pathos, and logos.

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.

In 1963, minister and rights activist, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a speech in front of Lincoln memorial to bring awareness to the unfairness of injustice for black people. King's speech was an effort to try and mandate the coming together of the black and white race and finally have the equality between us all be put into force for a free nation. As the speech left King’s mouth and entered 250,000 citizens ears, it left them to think about what point he was trying to make because he uses pathos, logos, and ethos.

In James Baldwin's letter to his nephew, written one hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation, Baldwin emphasizes on the issue of segregation and the challenge to not earn acceptance from a white society. Baldwins purpose is to explain not only to his fifteen year old nephew, but all young people of color in the future generations that the real issue at hand is to find acceptance for white culture in themselves rather than seeking acceptance into white culture. Baldwin achieves this purpose by using Aristotle's appeal of ethos and  pathos. Baldwin used ethos as he adopts a passionate tone in order to represent his view and convince his nephew, his nephews generation and the future generations to come of his purpose. Baldwins passionate and confident tone is seen through his constant use or repetition and restatements of phrases in order to reinforce his statement. For example Baldwin uses anaphora to convince the audience of what he had seen and experienced due to the racism that exists in America, “I know what the world has done to my brother and how narrowly he has survived it and I know, which is much worse, and this is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them. By repeating I know multiple times, further reinforces Baldwins concrete and passionate tone”. This leads and convinces his audience of his argument on acceptance. Baldwin then uses pathos to grab the audience's emotional attention in order to build an emotional agreement to Baldwin's purpose of acceptance. By using constant repetition of the word you throughout the letter, it is as if Baldwin is speaking

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

Gays were forced to stay under the shadow. They were afraid to show their own true colors. Harvey Milk was a gay activist who had encouraged people to come out of the closet and join their organization to fight for their rights. He says “Burst down those closet doors and stand up once and for all, and start to fight.” (Document G) In the the quote he explains that people who are scared and haven’t come out of the closet should and help join the movement for equal rights for homosexuals. Harvey Milk’s encouragement had a big impact in the past organizations, his voice and words have impacted the LGBT society in a big way. In document H it shows how people were doing riots to express how they felt. This helped make people aware of their movement and what they want. They were able to express how they felt through these riots. Today, all these riots and LGBT activist work have made an everlasting impact. They had finished their goal and had legalized gay marriage, something they have been fighting for a long time. Even though they face discrimination, they have had made a huge step for equality because of their hard work in the past and

Written by Martin Luther King Jr., the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is a paragon of persuasive writing that takes advantage of ethos, pathos, and logos in order to convince its readers to take MLK’s side during the American civil rights movement. The use of ethos defines MLK as a credible writer; the use of pathos appeals to his audience on a personal level; and the use of logos layers his arguments and claims with irrefutable reasoning and logic. By using all three techniques, MLK is able to hold the attention of his readers and persuade them to take his side in the battle against segregation.

The most rhetorical appeal used by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his letter is Pathos. Pathos is an element that brings out emotions of pity, sadness, and compassion. Dr. King uses this rhetorical appeal in his letter to convince the public about the injustice African Americans face. Dr. King also gave details of information about what is happening to blacks in the society, so the public can easily relate to. An example of pathos used in this letter is he states, “Injustice anywhere is a treat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects all indirectly’’.

Modes of persuasion are rhetorical appeals used in writing to persuade an audience (Worthington 58). The rhetoric appeals are divided into three categories; ethos, pathos and logos. Writers and speakers alike must have the ability to use the three appeals within a text to persuade a particular audience. Ethos refers to the author’s or writer’s credibility. The writer or the author has to establish his or her credibility for the audience to consider his or her views. Pathos is appealing through the audience’s emotions. As an author or speaker, it is important to create a certain sense of curiosity and imagination in the audience’s minds in order to have them identify with the speech’s or text sentiments. Logos is the most important of the three

Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the highest regarded civil rights activists in the mid-1900s. His two texts, “I Have a Dream” and “Letter From Birmingham Jail”, were greatly influential on the fight for African American rights. The way that King was able to persuade his audience, and preserve his their attention, was through using logos and pathos. Logos use a clear line of reasoning supported by evidence, and pathos use charged language in order to prod at the listener’s emotions. In his two pieces mentioned above, King uses these appeals in different areas and to different extremes.

Ethos, logos, and pathos are Aristotelian models of persuasion in writing. They are mainly used in writing in order to prove a point to an audience. These can be found in many forms of media: television, radio, and newspaper articles, for example. Ethos is used to establish moral character of the speaker, logos is used to present a sound argument to an audience with facts and figures, and pathos is used to persuade an audience with high emotions. Pathos helps reduce an audience’s ability to judge a situation by using figurative speech. It evokes the emotional side of a person, whether it be with pity or with fear or, in this case, sorrow.

The “I have a dream” speech delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. is one of the greatest speeches given during the civil rights movement. Appealing to the audiences’ emotions plays a crucial role in the act of persuasion and with his utilization of pathos, King does just that. “I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” (King). The reference to his children helps charge an emotional image into the listeners mind, more so because they are likely to pity the way the actions of others affect the younger generation.