How Does Martin Luther King Use Rhetorical Devices

In many speeches throughout history, the speakers used literary devices and rhetorical elements in order to persuade the audience and gain the audiences’ support. Speeches rely on three main rhetorical devices to gain the audiences trust and acceptance; Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. These three main ideas act on human thought and conceptualize the basics for a persuasive speech. Speeches throughout history such as Martin Luther King Jr.s’’ I Have a Dream speech, Margaret Sangers’ speech of The Children’s Era, and Cesar Chaves’ Eulogy for Rufino Contreras, all rely on gaining the audiences favor by acting on their emotion, logic, and ethics. They all use literary devices to accent these devices to appeal to the human thought and to gain the audiences

trust.
Martin Luther Kings’ I Have a Dream speech relied most heavily on the sense of pathos.

It stirred the audiences’ emotions into fervor with bold declarations, famously demanding the American people to “Let Freedom Ring” and that he had a dream of the defeat of segregation. Martin Luther King used repetition to emphasize his point and to call out and proclaim his dream and to rally the audience to his command. He used metaphor to compare the injustices of American Culture to a fraudulent bank. These thoughts and ideas rallied the audience with passion, moving their feelings with bold description. Dr. Martin Luther King also heavily relies of Logos, stating that African Americans were promised freedom by the founding fathers and had not yet received it, translating a sense of injustice to the audience. He presents a discrepancy within their culture and uses this to make his point. He uses this to gain the audiences confidence in

him.
The Eulogy of Rufino Contreras relied on Pathos as well, using the memory of a deceased loved one to stir up anger and conflict to avenge their fallen brother. He opens with a rhetorical question to catch the audience’s attention, asking them “Why was this such a day of evil?” before galvanizing them with his cause. Chavez points out those that killed Rufino and turns the audiences’ anger towards them declaring them [greed and unjust] .He galvanizes the audience and portrays Rufino as a martyr to villainize the company and raise the audience’s emotion to create a resistance.
Margaret Sangers’ speech The Children’s Era more heavily relies on Logos, the audiences’ logic, in order to convey her point. She uses logic to point out that a mother should be the one to decide whether or not to keep her child, as she is the one who takes the most risk. She states that if the mother is not healthy, the child will not be healthy, and uses these facts to force the audience to understand her point. She uses rhetorical questions to the audience, forcing them to think logically asking questions such as "Do you look upon children as a reward--or a penalty?" in order to force the audience to ask themselves what they personally think is the correct decision. She uses this conflict of belief to win the audience.
All three of these speeches appeal to the audience’s sense of ethos.

The eulogy of Rufino emphasized the injustice of Rufino’s death after so many years of service to the company. Dr. Martin Luther King pointed out the inequalities in American Culture caused by segregation. Margaret Sanger’s list of complaints all demonstrate that the American Youth, are being abused and poisoned by the crimes of the modern society. Chavez calls for the people to “stand up for their rights and strike for justice” so that the world around them may be more ethical. All of these pointed out discrepancies and wrongdoings in modern culture which were unethical and enraged the people, forcing them to wake up and realize what was being done. People’s values were used by these speeches to get inside the audiences’ head to reason with

them.
All of these speeches have used the three Rhetorical Strategies in order to get their point across. In order to do this, they have used many literary devices such as repetition, rhetorical question, and metaphor. These were the main ways in which the speaker was able to gain control of the audience and persuade the audience to believe in their opinion. They all appeal to the beliefs of the audience and use that to persuade the audience to believe in that opinion.