Rhetorical analysis

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On April 3, 1964, Malcom X published his famous speech named “The Ballot or the Bullet” and on 1963, the author Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a letter from jail to respond to eight white clergymen, who criticism him for unwise, untimely and extreme. The purposes of both writers are fight for civil rights and black liberation. They both use ethos, pathos and logos in their writings, which extremely useful in getting to their point to persuade the audiences to fight for their belief. Despite there are different between how they use these strategies but both use it very effective and produce very persuasive writings. First, they both use the rhetorical appeal of ethos. While Malcom X introduces himself as “a Muslim minister and a national spokesman for the Nation of Islam”, which is a leader and speaker of black community; MLK presents himself as “Fellow Clergymen”, the relatable speaker and the leader of the South Christian Leadership Conference. Their purpose are to gain respect and capture the audiences’ attention in the first look. When the audience know their reputation, they will continue to read or hear their works. Moreover, this strategy also help their writings become more reliable. However, they both have other different ways to appeal ethos. Malcom X mentions his religion at begin of his speech. His point are to persuade the audiences that despite we have the different religions or belief but it has no effect with the black equality. He argues that everyone should keep religions at home, for themselves, “in their closet” and “between ourselves and our God”. He know that the most important part is every citizen in black community have to stay together, fight together if they want to gain their freedom. The fact that he als... ... middle of paper ... ...ry language and logical statement, King can gain a lot emotion respond from the audiences. Moreover, by creating a lot of imagery from his evident, he can make the audiences to feel his pain, his lost: “But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim…”. He shows a lot undeniable crimes that white people have made black citizens suffer; he makes the audiences to understand his feeling, to see what he had seen. He arouse the raged and hatred inside everyone. Then he conclude that “you will understand why we find it difficult to wait”, King established an emotion by repeating the word “wait” to show his impatient and the serious of this situation. Ultimately, he want to use the emotion to convince black people to take action against the oppressive of racism, to fight along with him for the justice.

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