How Does Dr King Use Ethos In Letter From Birmingham Jail

A Knowledgeable outspoken choice Dr. King makes is to form pathos through his use of figurative and descriptive language. In the text you see in Paragraph 14, is his most pointed out use of pathos, implying to his memorable experiences. While using different analogies to himself and to acceptably argue the Clergyman allegations that the peaceful protests Dr. King is organizing against segregation are "unwise and untimely." voicing "… when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading ‘white' and ‘colored'… when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘nobodiness'—then

Martin Luther King, Jr., uses pathos, ethos, and logos in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” An example of pathos, is when King talks about a little girl seeing an advertisement for an amusement park. She cries when her dad tells her that she is not allowed to go to the amusement park, due to the fact that colored people are not allowed in there. This shows that even children where not spared from racism. One way King uses ethos, is how he quotes multiple historical figures in his letter in order to point out that being an extremists does not necessarily evil.

First this paragraph shows you how he uses logos and pathos in his “I Have a Dream” speech. He tells them how we can't be satisfied with the racial inequality that we are getting as blacks when he says, “We can never be satisfied as long as the Nero is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotel's of the cities,” (MLK 263). MLK explains how blacks are treated and that we as blacks should be treated the same as whites. This is how Martin Luther King used a patho in his most famous speech.

Martin Luther King Junior used both pathos and logos in his language. He used both in speech and in writing. Both types of persuasive appeals were effective in his “I Have a Dream” “speech and in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” writing but Dr. King’s use of pathos is more effective. First King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. He used more pathos in this speech than logos.

” (paragraph 39). In this quote he is saying motivational things like “free at last” and “able to join hands” which can inspire the audience. Another example in the speech that shows pathos to persuade the audience is when Dr. King emphasizes that “[he has] a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed” (paragraph 17). Again, the words he uses in the part of the speech can make the audience very motivated to do something about the problem they are having. Next, in the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” Dr. King switches his writing and uses logos to respond appropriately to the clergymen.

Martin Luther King Jr wrote an extremely powerful letter that created awareness within the Negro community that displayed use of logos, pathos, and ethos effectively. King writes from Birmingham Jail to the clergymen using the rhetorical appeals to persuade, particularly the white community that, “oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever” (King 7) by being the voice of the Negro communities. Even though the letter was written to diminish the clergymen’s assertions about the Negro community, King wrote a timeless piece of literature that moved both the white and Negro communities. Balanced sentence structures offered logical and concrete arguments that were addressed by Dr King through the heavy use of logos. King argues against the

Dr. King uses pathos appeal on paragraph two to get the reader feel that there is hope for the racial equality situation. The hope will make them more willing to fight this battle. On paragraph 2 of the speech, Dr. King says, “great beacon light” and “joyous daybreak to end the long night.” This brings hope to the reader because usually when someone hears light, they associate it with something good going to happen. Light is a symbol of something nice and good happening. When King talks about the “joyous daybreak,” he is talking about how even through the dark, there is light. This gives the audience hope that in the end there will be equal rights for everyone no matter what color they are. It is also a way to describe something hopeful. Paragraph

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’’.

Almost immediately, Dr. King tries to plead the case of all African-Americans. He states, “One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.” This appeal is to the hearts of those listen, that even if they are physically free, many parts of life bind them in a similar manner. The allusion of chains weighs heavy on a person’s conscience and is a great example of pathos. While he definitely uses a mixture of rhetorical devices, King uses pathos the most to make his point.

Dr. King uses pathos in his persuasive speech. Dr. King says “As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us.” This sentence he wrote expresses what he feels about the “ broken promises” that whites have

—“ This relates to logic because he is being rational in his goal; he does not seek to make it an ‘us vs. them’, but to achieve a common goal peacefully. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. also utilizes pathos in his writing to reach a wider audience. In paragraph 14 of his Letter from Birmingham Jail, he uses pathos in mentioning the pain he feels as his brothers and sisters are brutalized daily. “But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society.” He also mentions the heartache he feels having to explain to his daughter that she can not go to an advertised amusement park, because they do not allow colored people.

Dr. King communicates, “But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms” (King 581). This statement illustrates the pathos. Pathos means appealing to an audience’s

Baden Masenthin Mrs. Christie Advanced English 9 26 February 2024 How Dr. King Used Logos And Pathos To Structure His Ideas When Illustrating Them To Different Audience When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. explains his ideas, he changes his approach with logos and pathos depending on his audience. Logos uses a more logical approach to support an idea, while pathos uses more emotion-based elements to support an idea. In Dr. King's “I Have a Dream speech”, King illustrates two main ideas using pathos. One idea is about how Black Americans are not truly free, and this is illustrated when 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 crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.”

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.

He used a combination of logos and pathos to make it resonate on a deeper level with his audience. Another time Martin Luther King uses logos is after his arrest for peaceful protest against unconstitutional bans in 1963; his audience at the time were the clergymen, he states in his letter that African Americans “have waited for more than 340 years for their god given rights” he’s referencing the historical struggles of African Americans not being given their rights after so long of being lynched, bought and sold, brutally murdered or assaulted, and finally being promised rights they never saw go into action, to show the unjust nature of segregation. He also taps into pathos to connect with his readers'