Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and activist who led the African-American Civil Rights Movement. In 1963, he was jailed for participating in the nonviolent campaign in Birmingham, which protested against segregation and racism. In jail, he received a smuggled newspaper that contained an open letter written by white clergymen calling the campaign “unwise and untimely”. In response, King wrote a letter to them to defend his strategy of nonviolent campaigns. In this essay, I will focus on the rhetorical devices he used to achieve the purpose mentioned above.
According to Aristotle’s Rhetoric, any written work or speech, which aims to persuade, must have three main rhetorical elements: ethos, the trustworthiness of the presenter; pathos, the appeal to the audiences’ emotions; and logos, the logical appeal. In King’s letter, he used all three modes of persuasion to appeal to his audience, which was bolstered, by several uses of literary techniques. …show more content…
in systematic theology from Boston University), King already established his ethos without stating anything. The first complaint, stating that he was an outsider, was addressed using both ethos and logos. Like a plaintiff giving proof to the judge to deliberate, King described the nature of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, (SCLC) which he presides and how he has connections to Birmingham. He gave cold hard facts about Birmingham’s notoriety to explain why the nonviolent campaign has reached there; numerous unresolved cases of black churches and homes being bombed and records of police brutality to name a few. It would have been easy to overtly argue how he has the right to enter any state. However, he explained in a levelheaded way why he was there, giving him more
According to Aristotle’s Rhetoric, any written work or speech, which aims to persuade, must have three main rhetorical elements: ethos, the trustworthiness of the presenter; pathos, the appeal to the audiences’ emotions; and logos, the logical appeal. In King’s letter, he used all three modes of persuasion to appeal to his audience, which was bolstered, by several uses of literary techniques. …show more content…
in systematic theology from Boston University), King already established his ethos without stating anything. The first complaint, stating that he was an outsider, was addressed using both ethos and logos. Like a plaintiff giving proof to the judge to deliberate, King described the nature of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, (SCLC) which he presides and how he has connections to Birmingham. He gave cold hard facts about Birmingham’s notoriety to explain why the nonviolent campaign has reached there; numerous unresolved cases of black churches and homes being bombed and records of police brutality to name a few. It would have been easy to overtly argue how he has the right to enter any state. However, he explained in a levelheaded way why he was there, giving him more