Rhetorical Analysis Of King's Speech

Starting at the beginning of the speech, King uses a combination of things to get his mission across to his audience. King refers to past events whilst using anaphora, antithesis, and lastly epistrophe. King says “But soon a Moses appeared on the scene who was destined to lead them out of the Egypt of slavery to a bright and glowing promised land.” While King was indeed very impressed and inspired by this act, he then says, “In spite of its magnificence, I wouldn’t stop there.” King then proceeds to state, “Plato, Aristotle, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled” and again says, “I wouldn’t stop there, I would go on” and procced to the Roman Empire where one of the first well rounded cultures began along with democracy and yet again he, “Wouldn’t stop there”. King then says he would even go back to one of the most influential times in American history, “The Renaissance”, where all sorts of new ideas and cultures were being brought up each and every day but yet again King says he, “Wouldn’t stop there” While Dr. King was no doubt impressed by all of these historical feats accomplished by different people at different times in history; it never seemed to be enough. All of these things just seemed to, “stop” and King was dead set on his mission not stopping until the struggle for everlasting equality was finally reached. …show more content…
Dr. King uses hyperboles to describe the United States at that time. King tells the crowd surrounding him in Memphis that “the nation is sick” as well as that the “world is all messed up” in a desperate attempt to show not only the people listening to him that night, but also the rest of the world that it needed to make a change for the better and