Comparing MLK And Thoreau's Letter From Birmingham Jail

Thoreau and MLK use many similar strategies in their writings. One uses these strategies to make their piece more effective, in my observations of the two writing I come to realize MLK's persuasive letter, Letter from Birmingham Jail was far more effective than Thoreau’s Lecture On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, and here is why. MLK’s article was more effective because he strives towards tugging on the audience's heartstrings rather than the logical side, his repetition was used more effective, and he refers back to his audience. Also, because MLK stayed more on topic and was more passionate about his piece, made his writing a more effective disquisition.
MLK uses pathos in his piece ,for starters, while Thoreau uses more of a logical side

of things. right off the bat, in Letter from Birmingham Jail, King writes a giant sentence that was a big focus point in class during our discussion. King uses pathos in this sentence gaining more emphasis as the sentence goes on making the audience (who, keep in mind, are clergyman) feel sympathy towards kind and the black community. Kind uses examples of how the black are treated stating, for example, the first phrase of his sentence he states “But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim;...” progressing slowly showing more and more emphasis on his pathos side of things until he finally says “[W]hen you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness” -- then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.” King forces his audience, throughout the whole sentence, to walk in his shoes and fully understand what goes on and why they can’t take it anymore. Thoreau goes through to use logos throughout his piece, for example,when he states “The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies.” he begins to explain how men are controlled by the states to act as machines and not so much as men. moving down the piece, Thoreau stays on the same topic stating that the men must be friction on the machine rather than let it control them, he words it as “All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enough good to counter-balance the evil. At any rate, it is a great evil to make a stir about it. But when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer.”
additionally, MLK and Thoreau both use repetition throughout their pieces. King uses Alliteration throughout his long sentence, which was stated in the above paragraph, to transition between phrases smoother. King uses semicolons to end each phrase beginning the next with “when you” adding emphasis to the pathos, when reading the sentence out loud you notice yourself starting to talk louder and faster every time you get to the next “when you” causing the audience to stay hooked to what is going on and really get his point across. King also states “I doubt that you would so quickly commend the policemen if you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negroes here in the city jail;... if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham police department.” He refers to pathos with repetition of “if you” while stating to his audience why they are wrong. Thoreau uses repetition throughout his whole piece repeating the point of man being the “machine.” He uses the point as the main idea using repetition to keep it in the minds of the audience. As thoreau uses repetition as a reminder to his main idea, MLK uses repetition throughout his piece as an emphasis to his other strategies he uses making his repetition more effective.
To make his piece more effective, King also refers back to his audiences negative feedback catching their attention to what he could say next then stating why they are wrong.

First MLK tells the clergyman straight up that he disagrees, stating “Before closing I feel impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping “order” and “preventing violence.”” He then proceeds to tell them why they are wrong while almost poking at them for a reaction saying “I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes.” King also uses their religion and calls them out, proving them wrong with examples of their own religion as he first says “In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion?” and moves on through repetitions of questions starting with “isn’t this” too eventually bring up their religion when he states “Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God consciousness and never ceasing devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of

crucifixion?”
As King's piece was a response directly to the clergyman, Thoreau used his as a lecture so there are many time he gets off topic and while reading it takes a while to understand the point he is actually trying to get across. There are a greater number of interrupters in Thoreau's piece because of this complication including the interrupter when he says “I have contemplated the imprisonment of the offender, rather than the seizure of his goods -- though both will serve the same purpose -- because they who assert the purest right, and consequently are most dangerous to a corrupt State, commonly have not spent much time in accumulating property.” Between the dashes Thoreau states “though both will serve the same purpose” referring back to the previous phrase, yet he never had to add that as it is just a useless addition to the sentence as the same with the second interrupter, “and consequently are most dangerous to a corrupt State,...”
MLK was very passionate throughout his piece as thoreau sounded almost like he was just tired of the government and wrote his piece as a letter to complain about them. King writes in great detail about what he is trying to get across the minds of the clergyman using multiple strategies as he makes his way through his piece. As you read you can tell that King took his time to write this piece and made sure his audience could get something out of it without offending them, whereas; Thoreau tells straight up what we need to do to get rid of government, not getting anywhere except for making the government mad and getting the young to riot and make a change that is out of their control. King almost uses his audience as he persuades them into thinking he agrees with them then he proves them wrong with what they believe, so there is no way they can deny it being wrong.
Because he uses the strategy of pathos, repetition, and referring back to his audience, while staying on topic, and staying true to what he believes in, King’s piece was more effective than Thoreau.