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How Did Martin Luther King Use Sound Devices In I Have A Dream Speech

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How Did Martin Luther King Use Sound Devices In I Have A Dream Speech
The world needs leaders. Men and women who can make decisions, rally the troops, and accomplish change. In the 1960’s, two men stepped up to make a significant change in our nation and our world. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and President John F. Kennedy filled the needed roles of national and global leaders. Their most popular speeches were both alike and different in content and their use of sound devices.

First of all, both men spoke of freedom. In Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech he brought to the attention of his audience that it had been 100 years since the Emancipation Proclamation was signed into law, freeing all American slaves, yet “the Negro still is not free.” He quoted the Declaration of Independence that stated all men were created equal and guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Yet in the United States, the African
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They used sound devices within their speeches to help the audience understand and remember what they had to say. For example, King used many metaphors like “the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity,” to assist the audience in understanding what feeling poor in the middle of well-off people might feel like and to help them see these things in their mind’s eye. Kennedy also used metaphors to express his thoughts about working together when he said, “a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion.” However, one difference is that while King used metaphors and simile to compare abstract concepts to concrete things, Kennedy did not use any similes at all.

Although, King and Kennedy’s speeches were structured similarly with their utilization of sound devices and figurative language, their purpose for speaking were quite different. Ultimately, the world needed great leaders, the world responded with Dr. King and President

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