Martin Luther King – “I have a dream”
Context: August 28th 1963 * Summertime
Summer is a metaphor, a metaphor for the race riots…explosive atmosphere. The tension was mounting between the whites and the blacks. “the sweltering summer of our discontent”.
Where at: The Lincoln Memorial * to get more emotive say. It is symbolic; he uses it to remind America of what it should be.
Audience: 250,000. demanding, waiting for action to happen, waiting for their justice and their equality served.
The speech would have to be extraordinary to fulfil their political and social issues.
Speech aims to do 3 things:
* Pacify the audience
* Feed their expectations and enthusiasm
* It serves as a warning to government and the white people.
To appeal to the audience, it cannot be academic, or dry, or stayed. The audience doesn’t want any logic or reasoning. The speech, to be extraordinary, must be EMOTIVELY CHARGED. The whole speech must be packed with rhetorical devices.
This is a very evangelist style* prophetic, biblical language, emotionally charged, serves as an inspiration to the people.
In the beginning, a very hallowed and reverend tone. He echoes Lincoln’s words * Emancipation Proclamation * adds credibility to his argument, the basis for his ideals, a springboard to launch his emotionally charged words towards the audience.
The check * was a promise, a pledge, to the negro people. Still cant access the ‘great vaults of opportunity’ with this check. This emphasises the magnitude of discrimination of African Americans in America at the time, and still is today.
Repetition of “100 years…” compounds the racial injustice received by the black Americans.
Continues to create a rapport with slavery imagery * inflames the audience.
Inflammatory language such as: “chains of discrimination”, “manacles of segregation”. Oxymoron serves to stir tension and highlight the lack of balance in America.
His rhetoric is effective not so as to invoke a huge riot, but it instills guilt to the oppressor, but keeps the discontent and the resistance bubbling away.
Religious imagery: fire: seared in the flames of withering injustice.
Light imagery: ‘beacon light of hope’…contrasted with the ‘night of captivity’ contrasting now and later. A dichotomy to continue to accentuate the plight of the black Americans.
In the beginning, it was very formal, planned, well structured. But, as the speech progressed, the audience began to be more vigorous, so King capitalized on the opportunity, using more and more extravagant and religious imagery, to fuel the mounting passion.
Wants to beat the sweltering summer wit the autumn of freedom and inequality. Personification of the seasons, a parallel from sweltering heat to dry coolness.
Most important: the compounding repetition of I have a Dream. The speech, using this compound anaphora and equipped with constantly streaming penetrating imagery, the delivery is an orchestration to manipulate the dynamic nature of the crowd. Then, these imageries ring out more clearly and more powerfully than ever.
“Let freedom ring…” has a resonating effect, an echoing effect with the audience, further utilising the religious element of the bell, tolling its cry for equality. Like the bells, the messages against racism, especially against African Americans still rings clear today, who are still not as equally treated as white Americans are. This can also be applied to racism in general, and with increasing multiculturalism around the world, this speech certainly advocates the right message.
