Rhetorical Analysis Of Mlk's I Have A Dream Speech

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”. This quote was one of the most famous quotes of Martin Luther King that he used in the I Have a Dream speech. The I Have a Dream speech is one of the most remarkable speeches ever. This speech had an exceptional flow that was caused by the amazing style that MLK used. MLK used various types of rhetorical devices, such as metaphors which he used nearly twenty times, anaphora which he used eight times, and many other rhetorical devices like parallel structure, doublets and triplets, and antithesis. These rhetorical devices made MLK’s speech one of the best speeches in our history, and created in it a style which …show more content…
For instance, when he said “This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality”. He compared the burning summer, which is the unhappiness of black people, to the refreshing autumn, which is the civil rights that they were promised. In the summer, from the high temperature, people sense like if they were boiling, this gives a feeling of suffering and frustration. Black people feel the same way because they are not getting their rights. On the other hand, in the autumn, the climate is so good that it freshens and activates people after the summer. Black people would feel the same thing when they get the rights that they were promised. However, if MLK did not use this metaphor, this sentence would feel boring. For example, if he said “black people are not getting their rights, and they will stay frustrated until they get the rights that they were promised”, it would not leave the same impression as if he said it as a metaphor. Therefore, by using this metaphor MLK focused on this comparison, which made this metaphor