preview

How To Write A Rhetorical Analysis Of I Have A Dream Speech

Decent Essays

Martin Luther King Jr. “I Have a Dream” Speech Analysis

On August 28th, 1963, the greatest demonstration of freedom in this nation’s history took place in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. In fact, Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech demonstrated such remarkable use of metaphors and repetition in it to persuade the majority of Americans at the time into supporting the Civil Rights Movement through the early 60’s leading up to the Civil Rights Act being passed in 1964, which outlawed all discrimination against all race, color, religion, gender, or national origin. In all honesty, this truly changed America at its core, and boosted King’s legacy to magnificent heights.

Particularly, King’s repetition was used multiple times throughout the speech, but the most memorable part of the speech’s repetition, that gives the speech its name, was used when King used the phrases, “I have a dream” and “I have a dream today” multiple times from paragraph 13 to 20 in the speech. The recurrence of the expressions noted show what the Civil Rights movement was and what kept …show more content…

These metaphors influenced the audience that attended the March on Washington and King’s speech by letting them compare their struggle and their future to figurative expressions. A great example of this is when he says “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” in paragraph 7. This showed how King and his supporters would remain peaceful in their famine over freedom until they got the freedom they had starved for for so many decades. King believed that they should not become violent for something given to good people, or the group could be considered nothing but hypocrites. Not only that, but they would be downgraded even more than they were already and could have been known as ravenous savages that would kill for what they

Get Access