Rhetorical Analysis Of Dr. Martin Luther King's Inspirational Speech

326 Words1 Page

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr gave an extremely inspirational speech on August 28th, 1963 to a crowd of over 250,000 people. His repetition in his words, greatly affected the Civil Rights Movement and the speech was named, one of the best speeches since the Gettysburg Address. Specifically the phrases “I have a dream” and “Let freedom ring” were repeated. He was able to motivate the crowd by using very powerful words and using repetition to get the audience under a trance. The use of repetition on strong words gave the speech a very positive impact. It gave his speech an abundant amount of power through his words. Dr. King used motivational appeals in his speech to show what he desired for his people and the country. As a result, this showed the audience and me that he had strong and confident mental attributes of a leader. The combination of his powerful and influential words with the choice of repetition had a huge impact on how the audience had been effected. …show more content…

During his speech, MLK did not use much eye contact. Particularly in the beginning of his speech, although towards the end he did used more eye contact. This caused the audience and listeners to become mundane and dull towards his speech. Using more gestures/improving body language would’ve improved his speech. For instance, in the beginning of his speech, MLK did not use much body language. Hence, giving a negative effect on his performance entirely. Body language can extremely support your emotions while presenting or giving a speech. It did not give his speech as much potential power as it was supposed to. Altogether, body language and eye contact contribute to having a very emotional speech for the audience. Martin Luther King did not give much of these subjects through his

Open Document