I Have a Dream

Paper IV

Born the son of a Baptist preacher, Martin Luther King Jr. was a well respected advocate, a gifted orator and a highly persuasive writer. In the summer of 1963, Blacks joined together in a march, which ended at the front of the Lincoln memorial steps, where there, a 34 year old King, gave his speech called “I have a dream.” Using a number of persuasion and literary tools in his speech, King contributed the acknowledgement that America, as a nation, has failed its sacred obligation to unbind the blacks from; oppression, discrimination and poverty, and yet though slavery was no longer in existence, they were still in-slaved through segregation and were never given the privilege from prospering, in the great land of opportunity.

King uses a number of literary tools in his speech to urge the listeners to stand up and take charge of the situation at hand. By stating Lincoln’s demands of freeing all slaves, King uses the facts from the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, “five score years ago,” to remind everyone that though slavery was over, the black community was still in-slaved by oppression and bound to poverty and discrimination through segregation. King also uses the historical facts by stating the “magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence” had signed a “promissory note to which all Americans were to fall heir.” King brings this up to remind them that all men were to be treated equal and that the country has failed to give them these rights. King tosses in logic to show that America needs to pay the black community, their “riches of freedom” and the “security of justice,” since this nation has ample opportunities to provide them this freedom, civil as well as human rights and to unbind them from being poverty stricken.

In his speech, King entices the listener’s minds through the use of repetition. When he repeats “I have a dream,” King evokes the listener’s emotions. By stating this, not only does he dream of a brighter future for his children or himself, he dreams of a brighter future for everyone. Along with repetition King uses parallelism as another tool. He expresses to the crowd and the listeners at home that “with this faith” they would be able “to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together.” He wants the listeners to understand if they have faith, if they do things together and stand up as one, in the end they “will be free one day.”

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