In Martin Luther King’s speech, I Have a Dream, Martin Luther King argues that African Americans should have the right to live in harmony and equality here in the United States.įrom the very beginning, Dr. Each rhetorical device gets into the mind of the viewer or reader unknowingly. The author or speaker uses rhetorical devices, figurative language, diction, and syntax to make their argument more powerful, effective, and persuasive. But, I also felt like it was a slightly boring task and at times seemed redundant.Įvery piece of text has a point or claim that is trying to be made. It was rewarding because it made me reflect on what Dr. Overall, while looking back at this assignment, I have mixed emotions. King used words and phrases that appealed to the audience’s emotional side, making it almost impossible to not have sympathy. An author/speaker writes/speaks for a purpose, and most of the time there is an underlying tactic to get the audience to think the way that they want you to think. But when you get the opportunity to fully analyze a text, it makes you understand why exactly you were told to read it in the first place. When reading certain things, we read them because it is assigned and we have to. This assignment proved to be interesting because I never looked that deeply at a text in order to look for rhetorical devices. He wanted all to hear his speech and for the entire world to change their prejudicial views. I focused it mainly on African-Americans when I really wanted to state that it was not solely intended for them. I also could have done a better job with explaining who the target audience was. On the down side, I was not effective in analyzing all of the examples and figuring out why he placed them where he did and for what intended purpose they served. I provided a wide range and a sample of many different types. In the essay, I did a swell job pointing out all of the examples of rhetorical devices. Martin Luther King was an excessively descriptive writer and his speech, I Have a Dream, would have a plentiful number of examples. We had talked about ethos, pathos, and logos in class in detail but I was still having a hard time figuring out exactly what it meant and I did not want to have to have a really challenging piece of writing. When choosing the topic for the Rhetorical Analysis Essay I was looking for something easy.