How Does Martin Luther King Use Rhetorical Devices

In many speeches throughout history, the speakers used literary devices and rhetorical elements in order to persuade the audience and gain the audiences’ support. Speeches rely on three main rhetorical devices to gain the audiences trust and acceptance; Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. These three main ideas act on human thought and conceptualize the basics for a persuasive speech. Speeches throughout history such as Martin Luther King Jr.s’’ I Have a Dream speech, Margaret Sangers’ speech of The Children’s Era, and Cesar Chaves’ Eulogy for Rufino Contreras, all rely on gaining the audiences favor by acting on their emotion, logic, and ethics. They all use literary devices to accent these devices to appeal to the human thought and to gain the audiences

It stirred the audiences’ emotions into fervor with bold declarations, famously demanding the American people to “Let Freedom Ring” and that he had a dream of the defeat of segregation. Martin Luther King used repetition to emphasize his point and to call out and proclaim his dream and to rally the audience to his command. He used metaphor to compare the injustices of American Culture to a fraudulent bank. These thoughts and ideas rallied the audience with passion, moving their feelings with bold description. Dr. Martin Luther King also heavily relies of Logos, stating that African Americans were promised freedom by the founding fathers and had not yet received it, translating a sense of injustice to the audience. He presents a discrepancy within their culture and uses this to make his point. He uses this to gain the audiences confidence in

The eulogy of Rufino emphasized the injustice of Rufino’s death after so many years of service to the company. Dr. Martin Luther King pointed out the inequalities in American Culture caused by segregation. Margaret Sanger’s list of complaints all demonstrate that the American Youth, are being abused and poisoned by the crimes of the modern society. Chavez calls for the people to “stand up for their rights and strike for justice” so that the world around them may be more ethical. All of these pointed out discrepancies and wrongdoings in modern culture which were unethical and enraged the people, forcing them to wake up and realize what was being done. People’s values were used by these speeches to get inside the audiences’ head to reason with