Allusions In Dr. King's Letter

Imagine: You are sitting on the couch watching television and your daughter is sitting on the floor playing and watching the show with you. A commercial comes on for a local amusement park called “Funtown”, and your daughter exclaims that she wants to go to this amusement park. Sorrow fills your heart because you know that you will have to explain to her that she is not aloud to go because that Funtown is only open to the white children and their families. This short story reveals King’s usage of pathos, one of the rhetorical appeals, to reveal the raw emotions that King had to endure when informing his daughter of this.

Presenting his evidence to not just the eight white clergymen who prompted this letter but also to the coloured and white masses of the time, Dr. King presents an ample variety of religious and historical facts in addition to pathos-ridden anecdotes of injustice at play to sway anyone from the emotionless devout to the atheist white moderate. After stating a certain block of writing’s sub-thesis, the reverend moves swiftly to present his evidence before tying all the different facts together into a lesson to be learned — the sub-thesis — from the information at hand. An example of this format he uses is at the point where he discusses the justifiability of following or disobeying a law. Using simple wording, the reverend states his position

In his letter from the Birmingham Jail, Dr. Martin Luther King makes a reply to the eight white religious leaders of the South. He describes situations in which Negroes, despite the mistreatment and injustice of whites and policemen, desperately strive to attain "American freedom." As he explains the brutality and reactions of Negroes he tries to use persuasion and rhetoric to back up his argumentation. He does this by listing persuasive ways including subjective, objective, and interpersonal claims.

In the “letter from Birmingham Jail”, by Martin Luther King Jr. he uses pathos and allusions the most, to convince the readers of the vale of civil disobedience. Martin Luther King Jr. states, “An unjust law is o law at all” (page 7). This is persuasive because it points out the major flaws in the Birmingham government. With these flaws identified it shows how a government that is “for the people” and for freedom is only about giving white’s power and superior dominance. This improves the authors feeling of the passage by making whites feel ashamed of what they have done to their country. The author also states, “We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was “legal”… it was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany”

In Doctor Martin Luther King Junior’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail”, many literary devices are used. Specifically, doctor King uses allusion very well. Doctor King uses allusion right off the bat; for example, “I came across your recent statement calling my present activities ‘unwise’ and ‘untimely.’” This use of allusion is the first piece of evidence we have to confirm that Martin Luther King Junior is, in fact, replying to a letter. Doctor King, further, uses much more allusion throughout the letter. In this letter Doctor King is Gainsaying much of what his Clergy men criticized him on. For example, Doctor king says “You may well ask: ‘why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” Doctor King uses

Some might ask,“Why is Martin Luther King Jr. so important?” Martin Luther King Jr. marched to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C to give his “I Have A Dream” speech to a huge crowd. He also wrote a “Letter From Birmingham Jail” to eight white clergymen that didn’t agree with Kings beliefs. In both pieces of writing, he used logos and pathos to express to the listeners.

In the 1960's equality for the African American community still did not exist almost one hundred years after the Civil War. Dr. King received an open letter from eight Alabama clergymen. In his "Letter from Birmingham Jail" he responded with strong rhetorical devices such as the trinity of ethos, pathos, logos, and effective strategies of anaphora, repetition and periodic sentences. He does this to emanate the racial inequality and social indignity imposed on the African American communities during this time.

This sample of Dr. King's writing is from an extremely contested point in American history. He wrote this letter from a jail cell in Birmingham where he was roughly placed after the peaceful protests for human rights that took place in the city in April of 1963. He was responding to an article in a paper from some of his fellow clergymen who denounced his actions in the city calling them untimely and unwise. The response penned by Dr. King in his cell is a lengthy one, written full of emotion in an attempt to show these so called fellow Christians the folly of their thinking. They accused him of being an extremest in his spreading of the message of love and acceptance in the segregationist south of the time. They accused him of leading a movement

3,446 black people were brutally lynched from 1882 to 1968. Lynchings were popular among white supremacists, and was only one of hundreds of discriminatory events black people faced. Martin Luther King Jr was a prominent figure in the push for equality. He wrote speeches, formed parades, and protested to end segregation. While confined in Birmingham Jail, King wrote a letter in response to white clergymen after they told him his actions for equality were untimely. The letter was published and it had an incredible effect: the clergymen chose to side with King. Although MLK exercises a plethora of rhetorical devices throughout the “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, logos, allusion, and ethos are the most powerful because they

Gray and empty, the sounds of the inmates echo throughout the prison block. Controlled under superior authority, many stories are kept within the four wall cell. The Civil Rights Movement is at a peak in 1963. While prisoner in Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr., an important historical figure,constructs “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” to the eight clergymen, who wrote an open letter criticizing his actions and involvement in Birmingham, Alabama dealing with the segregation and racism going on. A Christian minister and an intelligent individual with a Doctorate in Philosophy, King powerfully and constructively writes to the clergymen. Sitting in a confined, uncomfortable prison cell, he addresses the criticisms. King utilizes techniques of diction, syntactical devices, and rhetorical devices for strategy to respond to the clergymen.

On April 16th, Martin Luther Kind Jr., Minister and Civil Rights Leader, his letter entitled “Letter from Birmingham City Jail”, angers and informs that civil disobedience is not just. He supports this claim by first saying that we will obtain our rights because of heritage and god, then protesting and breaking the law is the correct thing to do, and finally, everyday heroic people are disobedient to find justice. Through King’s use of tone, rhetorical appeal, and rhetorical analysis, he effectively persuades the people of America, to bring justice to this society and to stop the violence.

In Dr. King’s narrative “Kings Letter from A Birmingham Jail”, he focuses on the argument of the clergy in terms of their word choice, accusations, misunderstandings; and contradicts them using data, facts, pathos, ethos of Christian authorities, and the words of scholars to secure his argument against racial injustice. A powerful example of these tools is exemplified on page 9-10 of King’s letter which directly questions the word of the Church and further gives comparison as to why

In April 16, 1963 Martin Luther King wrote a letter from Birmingham jail that was addressed to the eight leaders of the white Church of the South, the “white moderates”. Dr. King’s letter talks about how unfair the white Americans were towards the black community, and how true civil rights could never be achieved.

In paragraphs 12-14 of “Letter From Birmingham Jail”, Dr. King begins addressing the clergymen’s belief that the peaceful demonstrations conducted by him and his associates were untimely. King starts answering questions frequently heard by opposing or moderate forces, as well as essentially denouncing the resistance to desegregation. King then introduced the relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed; concluding that the oppressor is not inclined to act on things that do not directly affect them. Therefore, providing a platform of his argument as to why blacks could no longer wait to be given their basic human rights. Action needed to take place because fair treatment was no longer a hope to be given, it had to be taken.

Possibly the three most important components a writer must understand are audience, genre, and rhetorical situation. When reading critically we become acquainted with these concepts therefore become better writers ourselves. While learning about rhetorical writing and composition we have analyzed Billy Collins “ Commencement Address at Choate- Rosemary Hall” , Martin Luther King Jr’s “letter from Birmingham Jail” and Lloyd Bitzer’s essay on “Rhetorical Situation”. In this paper I will analyze and make connections between the concepts of audience, genre and rhetorical situation in connection to the fore-mentioned readings. In doing so I will focus on how each used these concepts as means to communicate their main ideas and purpose.