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Diction: MLK uses sophisticated diction, uses words that show he is well educated.

Images: MLK uses very vibrant, and violent images to represent the police brutality.
He also uses very grim imagery to represent the sorrow of the African Americans.
Details: MLK includes many biblical details, as well as many details about the
preceding of the protests, and details about the police brutality toward the
protestors. He is less detailed in other respects.
Language: MLKs language shows that his is a person of education, that he is
someone who does not feel to be above everyone in education, but someone who is
above average. He uses somewhat advanced vocabulary and long sentences to help
create this feel.
Syntax: MLK uses long flowing sentences in many different cases to help get his
point across. He also uses a lot of repetition in the letter.

Speaker: Martin Luther King Jr.


Occasion: King is in jail following a peaceful demonstration in Birmingham. 1963.
Audience: Clergymen
Purpose: To explain why there is a need for action, and to explain why he is in jail.
Subject: The letter is about the need for protest to bring about change in the civil
rights field.
Enthymemes:
1.
2.
Pathos:
1. Page 3, Paragraph 3 / There comes a time when the cup of endurance
runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of despair. As
well as the rest of the paragraph / The entire paragraph is an emotional appeal to
the readers, when he talks about the suffering that he and his fellow African
Americans went through/go through.
2. Page 8, Paragraph 4 / Never before have I written a letter this long, (or
should I say a book?). I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can
assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a
comfortable desk, but what else is there to do when you are alone for days in the
dull monotony of a narrow jail cell other than write long letters, think strange
thoughts, and pray long prayers? / MLK discusses how he is in an uncomfortable
jail, and therefore his letter is rather long. He is trying to gain sympathy for himself
and his cause through this phrase.
Ethos:

1. Page 1, Paragraph 2 / I have the honor of serving as president of the


Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every
Southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty-five
affiliate organizations all across the South -- one being the Alabama Christian
Movement for Human Rights. / Demonstrates ethos with clergy members by
showing that he has a high ranking position in a major Christian organization in the
area.
2. Throughout the letter, when MLK references the bible and Jesus, he is
gaining ethos with his audience, who are members of the church.
Logos:
1. Page 2, Paragraph 2 / Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly
segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of police brutality is known in
every section of this country. Its unjust treatment of Negroes in the courts is a
notorious reality. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and
churches in Birmingham than any city in this nation. These are the hard, brutal and
unbelievable facts. / Demonstrates logos by giving facts about the city in which the
demonstrations took place in (also the city he was arrested and jailed in).
2. Page 4, Paragraph 1 / . An unjust law is a code inflicted upon a minority
which that minority had no part in enacting or creating because they did not have
the unhampered right to vote. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which
set up the segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout the state of
Alabama all types of conniving methods are used to prevent Negroes from
becoming registered voters and there are some counties without a single Negro
registered to vote despite the fact that the Negro constitutes a majority of the
population. / He uses logos here by giving facts about what he considers an unjust
law to back up his assertion that there are unjust laws in place in the system of the
time.

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