Joselin Vazquez

Period 1, H English

31 January 2017

Rhetorical Devices

Great speeches, such as Martin Luther King Jr.s Ive Been to the Mountaintop,

uses a wide variety of rhetorical devices. Rhetorical devices like metaphors, anaphoras,

and allusions are used in speeches to establish a purpose. Martin Luther King Jr. knew

how to use rhetorical devices to get his point across and accomplish what he wanted to

come out of the speech. Rhetorical devices helped achieve his three goals, to create

coherence, to generate attention, and to assure the listeners that the victory is close.

When Martin Luther King Jr. gave his speech, Ive Been to the Mountaintop, he

wanted the audience to be able to picture the america that they are currently living in. In

his speech he used metaphors to help the audience paint their current america, which

after seeing everything thats wrong with it they would then want to change. One of the

metaphors that was used in this speech is called The Sick Nation, he used this

metaphor to tell the audience that their nation is infected with a disease of racism. The

second significant metaphor used was named The Jericho Road, which talks about

how the state is a disgrace to the good samaritan law because men and women are

being beaten and killed everywhere. The mountaintop/promised land metaphor was

about the potential for the nation to change. These three metaphors help the audience

visually picture what is happening in their current america and what they want the new

one to look like.

 Ive Been to the Mountaintop also uses other rhetorical devices such as

allusions. Allusions are expressions designed to call something to mind without

mentioning it explicitly. "You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of

slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept

the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something

happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves

get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery." this is one of the many

allusions that was used in his speech. This allusion was used to show the reader the

necessity of unity in overcoming oppression. One day a man came to jesus, and he

wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters in life he included this

allusion to gain the support of christians that were in the audience. These are two

examples of how king used this type of rhetorical device to his advantage.

King also included anaphoras, which is the repetition of a word or phrase at the

beginning of successive clauses. One of the first anaphoras he used was i would.

Throughout the speech he says i would to describe the things that he would do for the

audience. He also uses if i had sneezed to describe his near death experience. When

he was used that anaphora he was trying telling the audience that if he had died he

wouldnt be able to help them and experience everything that was happening. That is

the type of style he chose to use anaphoras in his speech.

Martin Luther King Jr. was able to accomplish his three goals by using rhetorical

devices like metaphors, allusions, and anaphoras. He was able to create coherence by

having everyone realize the issues that are currently surrounding them and agree that

things can and need to change. His second goal was to generate attention and thats
just what he did, this goal was accomplished when he started getting the attention from

all types of groups, for example he got christians attention when he referenced the

bible. And the final goal that he achieved was to assure the listeners that the victory is

close. The reason all three of these goals were accomplished was because Martin

Luther King Jr. knew how to uses rhetorical devices to his advantage.