Rhetorical Devices In Martin Luther King's Speech

In a society that discriminates people by the colour of their skin, King addressed the situation with a power and inspiration speech that is famously known around the world. King was a civil rights leader who was assassinated for protecting the rights and stolen opportunity of the black people. King uses a series of rhetorical devices and speech conventions to give meaning and impact towards the audience. Some of these conventions and devices extended metaphor, alliteration and anaphora.

In King’s speech, extended metaphors were used many times to create imagery of racial injustice. He compares the unkept promises of freedom made in the Declaration of Independence and Emancipation Proclamation through metaphors. King uses elements of light and dark to contrast the white Americans as freedom and light and the captive Negroes who represented the darkness. King described the Emancipation Proclamation as the
He uses alliteration frequently to have the audience keep track and have the audience understand his point of view. When King talks about the negroes gathering at “our nation’s capital to cash a check”, he doesn’t use an over complicated sentence to confused the audience but a rather direct one. He uses this example of alliteration to emphasize why the negroes had gathered around to cash in a check, so they could stand as a whole race. King then goes on to say that America’s “citizens of colour are concerned”, personifying American as a real person. He uses this method to explain that both black and white people are America’s citizens, not just the whites. Alliteration is used in the speech as a means to make it stand out and make a change in society’s one track mind.

Anaphora is used in King’s speech as his main core rhetorical device to create a strong emotional effect. He uses it at the climax of his speech, to get his point across clearly and