Sam Kristen Can - "I Have A Dream" Rhetorical Analysis

Martin Luther King

Jr.

Context

Rhetorical Analysis

of "I Have A Dream"

By: Sam Kristen Can

Dr. Inabinet's

"Introduction to Rhetoric"

Constraint

Personal Belief

Rhetorical Situation

Ethos, Pathos, Logos

http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20060116JJ.shtml

https://domattica.wordpress.com/the-integrative-rhetoric-of-martin-luther-king-jrs-i-have-a-dream-speech/

Reference: http://dan.drydog.com/helen/the_rhetoric_of_martin_luther_kings_i_have_a_dream.html

Reference: http://iantangblog.blogspot.com/2013/09/dr-kings-use-of-rhetorical-appeal-to.html

CHRONOS - The speech was delivered at 9:30 AM on August 28, 1963.

KAIROS - The timing and atmosphere of the speech lent themselves to powerful oratory. King's message happened to reach the largest audience during the centennial celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation with broadcast networks and more than 250,000 people gather at the capital in the March on Washington for the Civil Rights movement.

Time constraint - King's speech somehow dwells in the "urgency of now" and fails to address some urgent issues, like the impact of the Civil Rights movement on the current economy and job issue. It has somehow been sustained only by the promise of the dream’s unfulfilled future.

Ideological constraint - The large audience that the speech aims at comprises of people who have a wide variety of beliefs and ideologies that may oppose to the ideology of the speech.

Structural constraint - King encountered little structural constraint because of his substantial ethos, credibility and social stand, access to political and social resources as a civil rights advocate etc.

Ethos

Pathos

DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY - King wanted to persuade a country to follow his charismatic interpretation of justice, using a long, rhetorical speech rather than a dialectical, one-on-one persuasive approach, with an array of rhetorical styles, techniques, and styles.

IRRATIONALITY - the call for a more just and freer society, with numerous examples of people in different races discriminating each other like "police brutality", "a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote" etc. somehow illustrates his disbelief in human rationality.

• Intrinsic: He is well-educated and has a passionate, well-founded opinion on African-American history: "Five score years ago, a great American in whose symbolic shadow we stand today signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree is a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice."
• He establishes his character and morality, promotes peaceful means to implement change in a society.
• He utilizes visual imagery, figurative language and correct use of English grammar.

• Extrinsic: his ethos also relies on his existing status in the African-American society at the time. Many people already trusted him, and he was already an established leader of the Civil Rights Movement. His title as a doctor further shows his reliability.

King capitalizes on the audience's self-interest "my friend", as well as his own to present a sense of pride in what they are doing at the Lincoln Memorial, using the visual imagery language: "cash a check," "signing a promissory note" saying "insufficient funds," through which he instills anger at injustice in the African-American community by creating an analogy of a broken promise and a plan of redemption to provoke the audience's emotions to rise up and fight for what is rightfully theirs.

He also establishes a common ground for the audience by bringing up the denial that African Americans had to face: "Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality."

*** "cash a check," "signing a promissory note," "insufficient funds," are metaphors, doxa, and orality.

Logos

King supports generalizations about discrimination and segregation using specific examples.

• "We cannot walk alone. And as we walk we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, 'When will you be satisfied?' We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality."
• "We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the city."
• "We cannot be satisfied as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their adulthood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating 'For Whites Only.'"

Also, he highlights denied rights of African-Americans that the American Constitution supposedly guaranteed for every person, regardless of their background. He also establishes the demands that must be met, made up of demands that logically come from the list of "inalienable rights."

There is a premise in the speech that: the equality for the Negro people was certified by the US Declaration of Independence "Five score year ago," and an inside, cultured enthymeme for people in the American culture to assume: "America would mean freedom." Drawing from these premise and enthymeme, we have a syllogism/conclusion: "all men are created equal."

*** "justice" can be a charismatic term or episteme

"I Have A Dream"

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Persona

2nd Persona -

The Audience

1st Persona - M. L. King

Thesis

To the audience, King is an established leader of the Civil Rights movement, who has much ethos not only to African Americans but also to supportive white people. He gained much trust from his fellows.

By referring to "all of God's children", "black men and white men", "Jews and Gentiles", "Protestants and Catholics", and multiple times repeating the term "America," King suggests that the 2nd persona includes every American, at least African and Caucasian Americans.

Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech is the "Demonstration of Freedom," promoting consciousness about racial inequality through peace and rhetoric.

3rd Persona -

Not Implied Audience

Although aiming to cover "every American," the content of the speech was not related to some important demographic groups in the U.S., such as Asian Americans or Mexican Americans. As a result, the 3rd persona would be other ethnic groups not mentioned in "I Have A Dream."

LOADED TERMS - By addressing racial discrimination, the speech aims to break down condensed meanings of terms such as "the Negros" - the underprivileged, discriminated against, slaves - or "whites" - the privileged.

TRUTH OF SPECULATIVE INQUIRY - The speech brings up a common truth that Americans should be able to enjoy freedom. However, it was not a FACT (truth of empirical investigation) that every American citizen obtained the right to be free yet, since there still existed racial discrimination and universal equality had not been practiced. The speech aims to change that by bringing up the failure to meet such a universal truth in America.

Epideitic

"I Have A Dream" entail a ceremonial sense of a speech for the community, emphasizing the urge for action at the present after analyzing past evidence and future possibility. The emphasis on the present is illustrated through phrases like "Now is the time," "it is obvious today that," "Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama," etc.

Text -

Rhetorical Analysis

PHRONESIS - King had the wisdom/ capability to rationally consider actions which can deliver the most desired effects, including WHEN (chronos, kairos), WHERE (the capital of DC), HOW (rhetorical methods like figures of speech, emphasis, intonation), WHY (the March on Washington during the Civil Rights Movement).

Genres

Forensic

Reference: http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=3fa36c52-f70b-4622-a95e-a511efeeaa4b%40sessionmgr4002&vid=0&hid=4210

DISSEMINATION - King was broadcasting/ disseminating his viewpoint about racial discrimination in the US and the urge to mend it with good faith, in the delivery method of rhetoric (a long speech with heavy emotions, with a large audience), not dialetic (a short and neat, one-on-one conversation).

In order to make a solid argument for peace, freedom, and equality, King attributes the speech to historical credentials, such as the US Declaration of Independence stated by Abraham Lincoln "Five score years ago," to make conjecture for the future truth of a universal freedom.

The incorporation of the past, present. and future throughout the speech leads to the stasis theory that tries to determine:

• The facts (conjecture) about whether racial discrimination existed.
• The meaning or nature of the racial issue (definition) associate with the ethics and definition of America
• The seriousness of the issue (quality): King focuses on the national scope and ethics of the discrimination.
• The plan of action (policy): "let freedom ring" by carrying on the faith together.

Rhetoric

Deliberative

"I Have A Dream" speech uses rhetoric, but not the kind of "flattery" or "habit of wit." Instead, it simply employs the art of probable and likely to argue for a universal right - freedom. The speech is a well-researched speech, mentioning not only the US Declaration of Independence, the Bible, but also the Gettysburg Address. The rhetoric in the speech drew the audience closer to the truth about American injustice.

Based on past facts of racial segregation, what is the action that we should take for the future? Although not directly stated other than simply demonstrate his "faith" and "hope," King implies that advocates of the Civil Rights movement should keep fighting for blacks' rights.

EPISTEME - There are terms in the speech that requires a high level of investigation and of truth, such as "justice," "freedom."

DOXA - alongside sophisticated terms as above, since "I Have A Dream" targets a large audience, the majority of it utilizes common language and common opinions, e.g. going to the bank to "cash a check" and to sign "a promissory note."

Empty Signifiers

Condensation Symbol

*** "justice" and "freedom" can also be charismatic terms and episteme

God vs. Devil Terms

In the speech, words that contain connotation such as the places of severe discrimination (Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, etc. are called condensation symbols, since they exemplify how language can be condensed with meanings.

If it were not for the agreed, universal secondary meanings of a certain word, that word would only be an empty signifier or a charismatic term, which means that the word may only be loaded with personal interpretation of the word. For example, the word "freedom" in the speech, if without the majority's agreement and without historical verification, would be King's sole vision and personal dream.

While when one mentions "white," we tend to automatically associate with other terms/ images related to "beautiful," "rich," "knowledgeable," etc. (god term, when one word is loaded with good meanings), the opposite goes with "black": "uneducated," illiterate," "slavery," etc. (devil terms, when one word is loaded with bad meanings). The speech addresses that issue and pose a solution of freedom and equality that can flip the situation and eliminate these god/devil terms.

Ideograph

The speech uses a lot of words that invoke images or visuals, such as when mentioning how the black children were "stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity."

Reference: http://sixminutes.dlugan.com/speech-analysis-dream-martin-luther-king/

http://blog.flocabulary.com/i-have-a-dream-speech-analysis-lesson-plan/

METAPHOR

Denotation

Metaphors allow you to associate your speech concepts with concrete images and emotions. In the speech, to contrast segregation with racial justice, King evokes the contrasting metaphors of dark and desolate valley (of segregation) and sunlit path (of racial justice.)

“joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity” [paragraph 2]

“the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity” [3]

“rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice” [6]

“This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.” [7]

“sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.”

Irony

The promise that "all men are created equal" one hundred years ago was ironic, as it had not been fulfilled until more than a decade later.

Besides words that have secondary meanings, everyday language which contains only its primary meaning has been utilized, especially indications for black mistreatment: "police brutality," "narrow jail ceils," "cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways," etc.

Canons of

Rhetoric

Throughout the speech, we get the abstract vision of "freedom" and "justice" in America that King proposes through the rhetorical tropes of condensation, displacement, and substitution.

Language Analysis

Reference: http://rhetoric.byu.edu/canons/Canons.htm

Connotation

A great number of signifiers - words with loaded meanings - create layers of connotation. In the context of the speech, Mississippi is not simply a name of a place anymore; it was a place that contained much hatred for inhumane treatment to black people.

Walter Ong: Orality

Style

Arrangement

Invention

http://sixminutes.dlugan.com/speech-analysis-dream-martin-luther-king/

• King employs additive language in his speech, like when he says: "I have a dream that... that... that..."
• Also, his expression is usually casual and full of everyday language (e.g. the metaphor "cash a check," "signing a promissory note," "insufficient funds"), since his targeted audience includes the Negro people, whose literacy level might not be very high.

METONYMY

Metonymy serves as the substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant. Some substitutions - some of which associate with some enthymemes - are indicated below:

The main argument presented in Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech is the presence and the need to rid of racial discrimination in America. The speech develops through inductive reasoning - bases on facts and actual happenings of the discrimination and historical resistance to make a broader argument for freedom and justice.

Synecdoche

King orders his speech into several parts based on ethos, logos, and pathos.

• To introduce the speech, King displays his ethos and deep knowledge by referring to Abraham Lincoln: "Five score years ago," the Emancipation Proclamation, and the history of African Americans.
• After introduction, King presents data and facts about the discrimination, and use the logic of the Constitution "all men are created equal" to call for actions "Now is the time."
• To conclude, King employs emotional appeals by painting a personal dream "I Have A Dream" of a better, fairer future of racial harmony and integration.

The speech uses many tropes and figures of speech:

• metaphor: “joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity,” “the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty."
• metonymy: America stands for citizens of freedom, justice; Mississippi, New Hampshire, New York stand for people, especially African Americans, lands of discrimination.

irony: even though the Constitution says "all men are created equal," the actual racial equality is not yet practiced: "signs stating 'For Whites Only.'"

• The Nation = The United States.
• All flesh = Everyone
• Stone Mountain = KKK (site of KKK activity)
• Lookout Mountain = The civil war (Site of a major skirmish in 1863)
• Thirst for freedom = thirst represents a strong desire.
• Our nation's capital = the US government

The reason why King had to use a lot of rhetorical means/symbols in the language of his speech: metaphor, allusion, metonymy, etc. is because symbols hold tremendous political and social power. Humans are driven by language that contain symbols and layers of meanings, since the way that we interpret language is taking the signified - what we understand based on our frame of reference - out of the signifier - any rhetorical means.

Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa. By representing people as bodies or flesh, King is reminding his audience of that the problems they’re currently facing are related to their skin color.

We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

SIGN

Signifiers / Signified

In the speech, there are many words that carry different layers of meanings specified inside the speech's context, usually such as metaphors ("a bad check" signifies unfair treatment to black people), euphemism ("captivity" signifies "slavery"). These signs lie under different figures of speech and make the speech a rhetorical success.

Walter Ong:

Literacy

Besides orality, he uses literacy to ensure the formality and rhetorical effectiveness inferred from the speech. King uses some subordinative language and complex sentences. E.g. "The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny."

Delivery

Memory

One thing that helped King in delivering the speech well is that he successfully remembered such a memorized oration. He uses many repetitive phrases such as "I have a dream," "Now is the time," etc. as facilities to call upon his memory of apt thoughts that effectively meet the rhetorical intention: to emphasize the urge to be unified and equal. Those phrases also serve as mnemonics for the message to be retained in the memory of those hearing.

"I Have A Dream" is a manuscript and memorized speech. During the speech, King utilized a considerable number of body gestures and pauses to convey and emphasize his point in an emotionally significant way.

E.g. In the repetition "I have a dream that one day," King emphasized and accentuated his tone on the word "I have a dream," took a little pause to get people's attention, then continue the phrase "that..."

Toolman vs. Aristotle:

Inductive vs. Deductive Reasoning

Kennedy Burke: Victimization

Reference: https://books.google.com/books?id=E6crTnceIusC&pg=PA92&lpg=PA92&dq=burke+victimization&source=bl&ots=zeUlYMxbt6&sig=roibrLr98iJdoFDBYYDjGY6O9t8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=w78qVdIwysGCBJ_-gLgM&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=burke%20victimization&f=false

The overall speech mostly conforms Toolman's inductive reasoning, going from concrete historical evidence of the Emancipation Proclamation stating equal rights for every American citizen, and the observable facts of prevailing racial discrimination, to draw a bigger argument for a dream of change and better justice. On the other hand, it also uses deductive logic: if the first premise ("America would mean freedom") is true and the second premise (the Constitution says that "all men are created equal") is also true, we must accept the conclusion that "Americans should all practice equal treatment to other people."

In "I Have A Dream" speech, black victimage ("the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality") was reiterated alongside white privileges in rights, employment, and education. The victimization of black people was used to gain empathy for a worthy cause: the American racial equality and justice, and to motivate the community - various racial groups - to heal and to reconcile.

Kennedy Burke:

Scapegoating

Reference: https://books.google.com/books?id=E6crTnceIusC&pg=PA92&lpg=PA92&dq=burke+victimization&source=bl&ots=zeUlYMxbt6&sig=roibrLr98iJdoFDBYYDjGY6O9t8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=w78qVdIwysGCBJ_-gLgM&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAQ#v=snippet&q=scapegoat%20King&f=false

Kennedy Burke:

Instrumental vs. Constitutive Use of Language

The idea that black people should turn their suffering into a virtue and teach nonviolence and love to America and the world permeates the King's speech. That way, King tries to get rid of or scapegoat black suffering to solve the racial segregation problem.

Kennedy Burke:

Euphemism

Reference: http://infinitypress.info/index.php/jsss/article/download/931/410

The deliberate use of rhetoric and different figures of speech in "I Have A Dream" may make King appear that he is employing the instrumental use of language, imposing his view on others. However, he actually takes his language very seriously and sincerely by putting humans in the center, which proves that King considers language as a constitutive tool, allowing the audience to process and absorb the information with all of his good will.

"It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity." Here "captivity" is a euphemism for "slavery," reflecting King's as well as the blacks' desire to change the current situation of discrimination. Also, "those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual." - "A rude awakening" is another euphemism to the rise of black people discriminated against. It is to warn those who do the discrimination and to comfort black people, softening the shock of the reality.