I Ve Been To The Mountaintop Analysis

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Three of the most famous speeches of all times are “I Have a Dream”, “A Time to Break Silence” and “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”. Written by Martin Luther King Jr., these speeches were well delivered and successful. Martin Luther King Jr. was a great man who certainly left an impact. King was a Baptist minister and social activist who played an extremely huge role in the Civil Rights movement. People before his time, like Mahatma Gandhi, helped to shape him into the man he was and inspired him throughout his involvement in the Civil Rights movement. King thought African Americans, people who struggled economically, and the ones who were victims of injustice deserved equality. Peaceful protests were King’s chosen method of accomplishing this …show more content…

The most common rhetorical device used in the speeches was an anaphora. An anaphora is a phrase that is repeated frequently. King repeated multiple phrases in all three speeches evaluated. In “I Have a Dream”, King repeats the phrase “one-hundred years later”. He uses this phrase in emphasize that much time had gone by and yet, there still hadn’t been change. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free.”. King also uses allusions like “... we’ve come to our nations capital to cash a check” and “... the bank of justice is bankrupt”. This helps give the audience a better imagine of what King was referring to. In “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”, he used an abundance of anaphors. The phrase “I would” was repeated seven times. He talks about how if God asked him what age he’d like to live in he gave many places and people he would want to see. King ended each place he’d go with “I won’t stop there”. It is thought that this was Kings’ way of saying he wasn’t going to give up on fighting for what is right. He continues with saying he is thankful to be in the 20th century so he could fight for a cause. There was also an example of antithesis, which is making a connection between two ideas or things. He used the famous words from J.F.K “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” In “A Time to Break Silence”, an anaphora was also used. King used …show more content…

This day is to celebrate the birth of a man who fought to help African Americans get equality. Martin Luther King Jr. was a man who led millions to help encourage a new way of living. His speeches were iconic; he connected with audiences when he spoke. He changed several things and gave people who were not treated equally hope, hope that one day their lives would be better. I believe Martin Luther King Jr. is famous because of what he stood up for. He fought not just for racial equality, but he also fought for peace. King is famous because of the courage and dignity he had to fight for what was

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