"I Have a Dream" Speech

Alliteration, similes, metaphors, and anaphora are used in numerous places in the “I Have a Dream” speech. Martin Luther King, Jr. uses these devices strategically to build vivid images, emphasize...

Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech is widely regarded as one of the most compelling persuasive speeches of the twentieth century. As such, of course we can identify numerous persuasive...

King's 1963 speech mixes a tone of condemnation towards present injustice to Black people with a contrasting tone of rising optimism about the future. Two words that jump out as setting the tone...

Speaking during the march on Washington, D.C. in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. claims that African Americans have come to the nation's capital to cash "a promissory note," a note that must be...

In a very practical sense, the audience consisted of those who gathered around the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC in 1963 in an effort to support the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom....

Martin Luther King uses logos throughout the speech. He says that the words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence make promises of freedom and equality to all Americans, and it is...

The first argument that King opens with is historical: African Americans have been promised liberties through various historical documents and proclamations which have never come to fruition. King...

Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream Speech," delivered on the National Mall on August 28, 1963—one of the most (if not the most) powerful statements on the urgency of equality and civil rights for...

Unfulfilled Promises The Emancipation Proclamation established that all slaves could enjoy new freedom. The Declaration of Independence guarantees unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the...

The phrase "now is the time" is repeated four times in one section of Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech. He declares that: Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to...

In his "I Have A Dream" speech, Martin Luther King navigates the tricky task of addressing both white and black audiences. To achieve this, the speech has a tripartite structure. The first part of...

I think that if we can choose one sentence of this speech that represents its main, central claim, it would be the following sentence from the sixth paragraph: This sweltering summer of the...

In order to understand what Martin Luther King, Jr. is saying with this quote from his “I Have a Dream” speech, you will need to read the rest of the paragraph that starts with the quote....

Martin Luther King's famous "I Have a Dream Speech" is known for its skillful, impactful use of rhetorical devices. These devices are used to connect with listeners on an emotional level and...

Early in the speech, King directly mentions the Declaration of Independence, which, along with the Constitution, he describes as a "promissory note." He means that when the United States came into...

In order to answer this question, you simply need to look at the words of Dr. King’s speech. He clearly lays out what he sees as evidence that African Americans were not free. Here is the...

Ethos is a rhetorical strategy where the speaker relies on credibility and trust to solidify a position or argument. This approach increases the authority and believability of the speaker and...

In his speech at the March on Washington, best known for his "dream," King described the United States as having "defaulted" on a "promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned."...

If an image is a mental picture that is constructed, then it's fair to say that many of Dr. King's images in the "I Have a Dream" speech are a reflection of a world of what can be as opposed to...

The 'I Have A Dream' speech was what I like to call 'an alignment of what was possible in the face of the immpossible. Although the 'March on Washington' was created by CORE and SNCC neither of...

There are many inspiring and thought-provoking ideas in Martin Luther King Jr.'s most famous speech. Arguably the most succinct and powerful statements of Dr. King's message occur toward the end of...

In his well-known "I Have a Dream" speech, Martin Luther King, Jr., employs language that is compelling and filled with both figurative language and rhetoric to urge his readers to believe in a...

A rhetorical device is any device that can be used to help persuade, and Dr. King uses a great many metaphors in his speech to help to dramatize the plight of the Black American. A metaphor is a...

In his “I Have a Dream” speech, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. used the metaphor of an island and a lonely sea to emphasize how African Americans were set apart from the rest of society. They did not...

Martin Luther King Jr. gave three pieces of advice to black people in his speech "I Have A Dream." He admonished them to never meet violence with violence, he encouraged them to continue to hope,...

In his famous and frequently quoted "I Have a Dream" speech, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. makes his view of the "American Dream" clear. To him, the American dream is one of equality for all people....

When Martin Luther King, Jr., named so many separate states in his speech, he not only connected with his audience, but he also subtly advocated for a federal solution to the problem of racial...

King mentions many parts of the United States in his "I Have a Dream" speech. This is meant to be sure that his audience realizes that the entire country has made equality a dream deferred for...

In book 1, part 2 of Rhetoric, written about 350 BCE, Aristotle defines three kinds, or "modes," of persuasive speaking: Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three...

First, I'd like to agree that this kind of repetition comes from the vibrancy and imagistic richness of traditional black preaching. However, in this instance, the series of repetitions begins with...

Martin Luther King Jr. employs metaphorical language when he says, Five score years ago a great American in whose symbolic shadow we stand today signed the Emancipation Proclamation. King refers...

Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the culmination of the March on Washington on August 28, 1963. In it, he refers to acts of injustice against African Americans in...

Martin Luther King was, first and foremost, a pastor, and his delivery is in precisely the dramatic, carefully paced, and modulated style one would expect from a charismatic preacher of the 1950s...

King is clearly referring to Abraham Lincoln. His "symbolic shadow" can be understood several ways. In the first place, King and his audience, gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.,...

The three techniques of persuasion, according to Aristotle in The Art of Rhetoric, are based on the appeal to logos (reason), ethos (belief system and character of the speaker and listeners), and...

In paragraph 14, Martin Luther King is addressing the black and white activists in the audience who came to the March on Washington. Tribulations are sufferings or persecutions. King specifically...

(eNotes editors may only answer one question per response. If you need more specific answers, please resubmit more questions.) Dr. King's audience for the "I Have a Dream" speech was motivated...

King addresses both black people and white people in his "I Have a Dream Speech." He tells white people that for a hundred years they have been promising black people equal access to the American...

Beginning with his rhetorical repetition of "I have a dream," two effective vocal strategies Martin Luther King, Jr. uses in his "I Have a Dream" speech are pause and pitch inflection.Effective...

Anaphora is, according to eNotes, "the repetition of a phrase at the beginning of sentences," a technique seen throughout King's famous speech. Anaphora is seen in many iconic speeches--it's a...

King's main message in the "I Have A Dream" speech is that African Americans have not yet received the rights to which they, as Americans, are entitled. He essentially summarizes this point early...

One reason Mississippi is referenced is because it represents the very essence of Southern segregation. There are few places that were more intent on keeping "the Southern way of life" in terms of...

Like many prolific writers and speakers, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was not always consistent in his views. There is no consensus about whether or not he recanted the views he expressed in his "I...

The “I have a dream” speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. is one of the most famous pieces of oratory in American history. Particularly famous is the section in which King proclaims his dreams: I...

The metaphors that Dr. King uses in his speech to describe the condition of African- Americans at the time of the March on Washington have multiple layers. One such dimension was the fact that Dr....

King states the purpose of the March on Washington in the third paragraph of his famous speech. He says that he and the many others who've made this march to the nation's capital have come to "cash...