Preview

Malcolm X Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
520 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Malcolm X Rhetorical Analysis Essay
Back in the 1960s, Malcolm X was an influential public speaker. He protested for equal rights of African Americans. At that time, in the United States, African Americans did not have the same rights as white people. He had a rough upbringing; he was born into a large family and had eight siblings. By the time he was twelve years old, his mother had been sent to a mental hospital, and his father had been killed after being hit by a car. He then spent the rest of his childhood in foster homes. In 1946 he was then arrested for stealing and was sent to prison. This is believed to be a significant motive for making his speeches.

This essay will discuss the controversial speech that was given in Detroit in 1965 and look into the language he used to influence his audience. The speech is about how African Americans don't have the same civil rights as
…show more content…
Improving their self-esteem and helped break the fake image of them being lower class citizens.

Malcolm x uses lots of rhetorical devices in this speech to get the audience on his side. Throughout the speech he uses lots of repetition to emphasize its significance like how he uses the word Africa many times throughout the speech

Rhetorical questions are important any for speech they get the audience thinking. Malcolm x uses them all throughout paragraph five. " Now what effect does the struggle over Africa have on us?"
He uses them to get his audience to think about why they should be concerned about what's going on in Africa.

Malcolm X was one of the most influential public speakers in history he drastically changed the way African Americans were treated.
His dramatic way of delivering a speech (using powerful repetitive language) created a strong following. The way he states the truth about the situation among African Americans and white Americans is fair and unprejudiced. Without bias or

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    This means that while Malcolm X was incarcerated, there were larger events affecting his perception. As Malcolm X taught himself to read, the racial events in America were very heated. The animosity that Malcolm X had toward the Anglo-Americans showed in Learning to Read. One example of Malcolm Xs despise of whites is when he states, Book after book showed me how the white man had brought upon the worlds black, brown, red, and yellow peoples every variety of the suffering of exploitation (X 248). After being in the dark for so long concerning the truth about racism, Malcolm X was shocked after reading about how the white man had brought about a large amount of misery to every other race. This fueled the need to stress black separatism and the need for African-Americans to separate themselves from White America.Another example of Malcolm Xs loathsome attitude toward the Anglo-Americans is concerning the Opium War in China. Malcolm X talks of white Christian traders who sent millions of pounds of opium into China. By 1839, so much of the Chinese population was addicted to opium that the Chinese government had to destroy twenty thousand pounds of the drug. Due to this event, the white Christian traders declared war against China. Imagine! Declaring war upon someone who objects to being narcotized! The Chinese were severely beaten, with Chinese-invented gunpowder (X…

    • 1048 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In his autobiography, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X reveals that he has “been blessed by Allah with a new insight into the true religion of Islam, and a better understanding of America’s entire racial dilemma”. He supports his claim by using repetition, tone, and diction. Malcolm X’s purpose is to inform the audience of his new revelation of values in order to illustrate the racism, prevalent in the USA. The author writes in a shocked tone, addressing the citizens of the United…

    • 85 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Serving his ten year sentence in a state prison Malcolm X encounters a religious teacher named Baines (Albert Hall) who provided knowledge on Islamic beliefs. He too was a manipulator. He taught Malcolm X not to have self-hatred in exchange for hate people of Caucasian descent. For instance, in one scene Baines interrupts Malcolm X in the shower as he is using his lye straightening products. Baines offers Malcolm X a drink, which is similar to a drug to get him high. Baines does this because he known this is the only way Malcolm will speak with him. He actually even states it to Malcolm in the scene. This was a manipulation tactic similar to the one used by Archie in the bar scene. Baines becomes the connection between Malcolm X and Elijah…

    • 244 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In order to capture his listener’s attention, Malcolm X employs figurative language such as personification and similes to add life to his writing. When he talks, it sounds poetic. First, he personifies America by saying “she doesn’t want us here.” By doing so, he creates a common enemy; one which when personified, is more readily recognized. Also, he compares the blacks to strong images and symbols that evoke pictures of brutality. He says the people are “slaves,” and this…

    • 698 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    MHS Student 
on August 15, 2012

Reply

Christian Alex Amezquita- Malcolm X has had a lot of events happen early in his life that has affected/shaped him throughout his entire life. For example, there was that time when the welfare workers came to Malcolm's house to split up his family and send his mom to an insane asylum (Kalamazoo). In addition, Malcolm was put with a white family whom treated him like an over glorified dog. He never could feel as if he was one of them, but always felt that he was beneath them. Furthermore, Malcolm's teacher telling him that he could not become a lawyer because of his color really had an impact on him. All of these events gave Malcolm a good reason to become a Civil Rights leader. These events where the wood to his fire and Elijah Muhammad was his flint and steel.…

    • 2021 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Malcolm X Ethos Pathos Logos

    • 4340 Words
    • 18 Pages

    He knew what his audience would be every time he spoke, he knew they were there to see him and they mostly shared his same ideas. Malcolm was very controversial and received a lot of bad publicity during his life in the public eye. After serving his time He became the spokesman for the NOI. As Malcolm X became more popular so did the Civil Rights Movement. During "Message to the Grass Roots" Malcolm did a sub par job in increasing his ethos, but an excellent job on increasing the ethos of his movement. I believe in a case like this it is better to increase the credibility of your movement. Because it is important that the audience accepts the ideas of your movement, but they don't need to like you. The most impact this speech had was on the pathos of the audience. He continually portrayed blacks as being less then human, not wanted and disrespected by white people. He made his audience feel as if there was no hope. This helped him in achieving the goal of separation. He also used togetherness among blacks to emotionally influence their ideas. His logical appeal came through historical facts, pertaining to revolutions, and how the government consistently lied to us. His speeches were so successful due to his emotional appeals and the style of his delivery and his choice of…

    • 4340 Words
    • 18 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Kristopher, I enjoyed reading your discussion post. What I believe made Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. such an active speaker was his ardor. He wanted peace in a world filled with much hatred and anger. Dr. King appeals successfully to the people; by preaching peace, love, and unity. He persuaded his audience to see the future- how life could be if freedom would happen. King gave the people something to hope for; how the children of the future could unite as one.…

    • 82 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Malcolm X was a man who changed the lives of the African Americans, especially in Harlem. During his time of living, Malcolm X fought, worked, and struggled to help make Harlem a better place for the Afro-Americans at a young age. He was a big influencer to the African American world, but he was assassinated, but little did he know he would leave his legacy with Harlem to, later on, spread to the world. Of course, there were some who had some negative things to say about Malcolm X, but the ones who really got to know him begged to differ because they knew how much he impacted the African American community. Malcolm X used his strong words to an advantage to lift the weak and weary.…

    • 198 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Martin Luther King‘s speech he speaks with such passion and determination, you can tell in his voice that he means everything he says and his hope reaches out to people and the way he emphases his words captures the audience’s attention. He believed that every person should be equal despite their skin color. In Malcolm X's speech he talks more about himself and he thought it would be best for everyone to keep their religion to themselves. He believed that the black people were trapped by the white people. He thought of white people as the enemy and he mostly spoke negatively about them. He made jokes throughout his speech and to me he didn’t sound at serious as Martin Luther. For example Martin said “Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it…

    • 473 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Malcolm X went through a lot throughout his life and there are countless events that impacted him in significant ways that changed him for the good and bad. These events form central ideas that are seen in many instances throughout the book. These central ideas are systemic oppression, racial identity, and integration v. separation. Three events that were some of the most important and impacting on Malcolm X’s life was when he was introduced Harlem and the hustling scene, his time in jail, and his pilgrimage to Mecca. These events are important in the way that all three had an impact on him mentally and changed his views on religion, what he believes in, and what he wanted to accomplish.…

    • 834 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    lollipop from a black child, at which point the black child stops crying and goes out to fight the white boy), and they will then proceed to keep rising up against those white people until they have absolutely nothing, and have learned a lesson to never mess with any black people ever again (in the article, the black child beats the white child to “within an inch of his ass-cracker life”). This exaggerates Malcolm X’s real words, which were more to the effect of “By any means necessary”, in order to achieve humour. However, the article does not only make fun of Malcolm X. The final paragraph is supposed to be a quote of what the FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover at the time of the event said about the speech: “…it would appear that, after four centuries of abuse, broken promises and subjugation, American negroes are not only dissatisfied; they’re starting to get really angry.” This statement accuses white Americans of being ignorant towards the struggle for racial equality between them and African-Americans, as well as to why they are rising up.…

    • 517 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Malcolm X is an African American who dropped out of school and had little education,yet, he changed his life. He grew up as a hustler with a lack of reading and writing skills, he quotes “I picked up a book had a few sentences…I just skipped those words. Of course, I had no idea of what the book actually said.” (123) He had little capability of reading and understanding the book. He went to jail for burglary and that is where he changed his life. He practiced reading and writing by himself and became an ace speaker and writer once he got released from prison. He…

    • 508 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    An essay on Malcolm X’s famous speech given in Cleveland, Ohio on April 3, 1964.…

    • 3768 Words
    • 16 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Malcom X

    • 629 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Malcolm x was more than determined to become educated, and with only an eighth grade education he knew that he had to do something. Malcolm x met a guy named bimbi that was much more educated the malcom X. malcom X knew this because he noticed how bimbi always took charge of any conversation he was in. so malcom x decided to emulate him by trying to read the things bimbi was reading. As quoted in the paragraph 10 of “Coming to an Awareness of Language” malcom X said “I had tried to emulate. But every book I picked up had few sentences witch didn’t contain anywhere…

    • 629 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    school work

    • 872 Words
    • 4 Pages

    On August 28th, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr presented one of the most rhetorically inspiring speeches ever delivered. Titled the “I Have a Dream Speech,” Dr. King presented this speech to the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” group. As a civil rights activist he gave this speech to not only black Americans but to all Americans so that he could promote the idea of equality. He was cleverly able to rhetorically make his speech with the goal for Americans to understand and agree with him. He brought up issues of society in a way that affected his entire audience emotionally and logically. Martin Luther King’s speech successfully brought up the issue of civil rights using many rhetorical strategies to a racially mixed audience who he viewed as equal, not different.…

    • 872 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays