Martin Luther King Speech Rhetorical Analysis

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On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered one of the most recognized speeches at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. King's speech has become widely known for many reasons but the most recognizable one is King's use of literary elements. The speech is considered to be poetic by many due to the relentless use of metaphors and other poetic devices. Metaphors King's speech is composed almost entirely of metaphors. In fact, finding a sentence that is metaphor free proves itself to be quite the challenge. Most metaphors in the speech are limited to a single sentence and are very independent of one another. The purpose of these metaphors are simply to provide better imagery and make the speech more interesting to listen to.…show more content…
This makes the purpose of this phrase a little different than the other ones. This repetition is not meant to make the phrase stay in the listener's head, but rather make the idea stay there. King is using this repetition to progress the listener's thought from the last repetition and brief lecture on morals following it to the new idea and motivation that we cannot be satisfied until justice has been…show more content…
Chronologically, the speech says “We are not free one hundred years later, the time to act is now, we can never be free until justice if served, all of you have suffered for a dream we can accomplish with faith, and finally, freedom will ring from every corner of America." The repeated phrases perfectly describe the what the speech is saying, and so he uses the repetition to key the listener in on every primary topic. These points may not always be the most interesting and thought provoking points of the speech, but they are the most important for the listener to understand, and so King uses repetition to ensure that the they are
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