All Classes--Example of Analytical Writing: MLK's "I Have a Dream" Speech

Scholars: It is good to read examples of analytical writing because it helps you understand how to write your own analysis essays. The habit of reading and studying models (examples) is the best way to learn how to write more effectively. Below is an analysis that I wrote on MLK's "I Have a Dream" Speech.

Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., begins his speech with words that evoke a celebratory mood: “happy to join with you” and “the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.” His first sentence also conveys to his audience that they are taking part in an important historical event, appealing to their emotions (pathos) and reminding them also of the gravity of the occasion. He evokes President Lincoln in both his words and his stagecraft (where a speaker physically positions himself). The “five score years ago” phrase is an allusion to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, but more importantly, King is standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the Washington Mall. King is cognizant of the power of an image—the “symbolic shadow” of Lincoln whose executive order, The Emancipation Proclamation, was issued 100 years prior to King’s speech. He connects the historic events of the Civil War, which was fought over the issue of freedom, and the Civil Rights Movement of his day.

King is a preacher and the diction (word choice) in his speech reveals this vocation. The “five score years ago” phrase has a biblical resonance that is accentuated throughout the speech, not only through the direct and indirect allusions to the Bible, but also through King’s cadence (the sound quality of his speech) created by syntax (groups of words) and punctuation. His prose has a sonorous, elevated quality that imparts to his audience the idea that the present moment is about the sacred values of justice, faith, and human dignity. In paragraph 2, he refers to the Negro slaves who had been “seared in the flames of withering injustice” and the “long night of captivity,” which is an allusion to the Jews enslavement by the Egyptians in the Old Testament. Words such as “sacred obligation” (par. 4), “hallowed spot” (par. 5), “palace of justice” (par. 7), “the high plane of dignity and discipline” (par. 7), “creed” (par. 11), and “faith” (par. 14) are a few examples of diction to remind his audience that civil rights and equality are moral and spiritual imperatives (ethos) that the American nation must address.

Use of figurative language abounds in this speech. Some examples from paragraph 2 alone are “beacon light of hope,” “seared in flames of withering injustice,” “long night of captivity,” “manacles of segregation,” “chains of discrimination,” “lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.” King contrasts the optimistic “light of hope” phrase (Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation) with metaphoric language in the rest of the paragraph that captures the “appalling condition” of civil rights in America at this time—the diction suggests inequity, imprisonment (echoes of slavery), and isolation. Paragraph 2 also introduces a technique that King will use throughout this speech—anaphora, which is the repetition of a word or words at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences. The anaphoric “one hundred years later” highlights the inexcusable length of time (a century!) between the Emancipation Proclamation to end slavery and the fully realized promise of inalienable rights and privileges guaranteed by America’s founding documents.

In paragraph 3, King introduces the extended metaphor of a check that bounces by alluding to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, “a promissory note” for all Americans, not just whites, that would guarantee “the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The financial metaphor extends through paragraph 4 with diction such as “defaulted,” “bad check,” “ ‘insufficient funds,’ ” “bank of justice,” “vaults of opportunity,” “riches of freedom,” and “security of justice.” King effectively uses logos in these paragraphs. The nation’s founding documents, which all Americans hold sacred, were written to establish equity and rights for all. These liberties should apply to each and every citizen, yet blacks have been deprived of their rights, civil and economic. Therefore a contract has been breached, which is unfair and unreasonable (logos).

King emphasizes the seriousness and importance of his cause through compelling diction in paragraph 5 that connotes imminence and necessity: “the fierce urgency of now” and the anaphoric “now is the time.” This is no time to “engage in the luxury of cooling off” or succumb to the “tranquilizing drug of gradualism,” he says. The condition of African Americans is dismal: the metaphoric “desolate valley of segregation” and “quicksands of racial justice” speak to their state. Blacks are falling through the ground of justice, and we, as a nation, can no longer justify a “gradual” movement to full civil rights. African Americans have waited too long. “Gradualism” is a time reference that some whites used to assuage blacks and mitigate the urgency of their irrefutable struggle for civil rights. King juxtaposes these metaphors with a hopeful future: the phrase “doors of opportunity to all of God’s children” appeals to Americans’ ethical responsibilities; “the solid rock” phrase is the antithesis of the earlier “quicksands.” The cadence (sound quality) in this paragraph, in addition, reflects the dire need for expeditious change. King’s sentences, strong in tone, are declarative proclamations. He culminates the paragraph with an exclamatory sentence, which amplifies and intensifies all of his latter points.

“It would be fatal,” which begins paragraph 6, introduces a subtly menacing tone to King’s speech. Alluding to Shakespeare’s Richard III, King makes it clear that “the Negro” will wait only so long in “this sweltering summer” of “legitimate discontent.” He addresses those whites who hope to placate African Americans by allowing blacks to “blow off steam,” implying that they (the whites) are seriously misguided. Through a series of weather tropes (a figure of speech—metaphor or image--that recurs in a text or is commonly used in a literary genre), King portends a future that may become stormy—“whirlwinds of revolt”—if the “sweltering summer” does not lead to “an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.” The American nation may soon experience an unsettling and chaotic period—“shake the foundations”—if the weather of its attitude is not replaced by a “bright day” when “justice emerges.”

King follows this paragraph by addressing those blacks who believe that active, possibly violent, protest may be a feasible plan of action. He suggests that “wrongful deeds,” as well as “bitterness and hatred,” are not vehicles for conciliation. His exhortative sentence that begins “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom” appeals to the emotional and ethical sensibilities of his audience. The exhortative (which is much gentler and better received than an imperative) uses beautiful figurative and biblically evocative diction that transports the struggle for race equality from the earthly plane, where human beings can become mired in the more primal emotions of hate and fear, to the “high plane of dignity and discipline.” King figuratively raises his argument to the realm of idealism and values. Much like Lincoln did in his Gettysburg Address, King, at this point in his speech, is reconciling all sides, castigating no one in particular for the current state of the union, by elevating his discussion to the sphere of ideals. His discourse transcends the earthly plane of time and place to the plane of universal values. He alludes to Emerson, the great transcendentalist and someone who influenced King, in his phrase “the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.” Emerson said, “Great men are they who see that spiritual thought is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world” (Progress of Culture. Phi Beta Kappa Address, July 18, 1867). King persuasively uses the alliterative phrase “marvelous new militancy” to describe the incipient Black Panther Party, a revolutionary organization that would later become prominent in the United States from 1966 until 1982. His complimentary “marvelous” could help palliate those blacks who want to be more extreme in their fight for civil rights. King aptly tries to encourage those individuals to unite with his own organization, which believed in addressing injustice through quite different means. The last sentence of the paragraph calls upon the white moderates to recognize the commonplace (common ground) that all human beings (regardless of skin color) share a “destiny” and “freedom” that is “inextricably bound.” As is typical of King’s style, he achieves a crescendo in the last sentence of the paragraph, a paragon of figurative eloquence that exalts his discourse.

In paragraph 8, King ignites his audience with the theme of unification, and he also utilizes the trope of travel imagery. The March on Washington is a literal and figurative journey to the more perfect union envisioned by our founding fathers in the Preamble to the United States Constitution. King addresses the counterarguments and thoughts of naysayers, those whites who were discomfited by the activism of the Civil Rights Movement, when he uses hypophora, a figure of speech that asks a rhetorical question and immediately answers it. To the question “When will you be satisfied?” King responds, “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.” This sentence, concretely and physically makes clear the hardships that blacks endure on a day-to-day basis. The extended metaphor of travel, as well as the use of antithesis, is used effectively with the diction in the latter sentence and the sentence that follows when King refers to a Negro’s “basic mobility” moving merely from “a smaller ghetto to a larger one.” The anaphoric phrase of not being satisfied shows the desperation, potency, and unswerving dedication to a much-deserved American dream: “justice” rolling down “like waters and righteousness like a might stream.” Again King’s language is figurative and biblically allusive (Amos 5:24), adding to its beauty and the profundity of his message.

There is a shift in the next paragraph to a more intimate and direct tone. King empathetically (pathos) speaks to the personal “you” in the audience, demonstrating that he understands the pain and “great trials and tribulations” of many before him. He alludes to their being jailed (“narrow cells”) and their figurative and literal “battering”: “storms of persecution” and “winds of police brutality.” Again, King is using the trope of weather to recognize the turbulence that many have endured because of their convictions and their struggles. King is a father figure here, as well as a religious leader. He uses the oxymoronic “creative suffering” to reassure his followers that goodness will come from their efforts. The tone becomes especially religious and spiritual when he inspirits his audience members with the “faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.” For so many civil rights activists, who were tired and depressed at this point in history, King’s words are comforting and hopeful.

In another shift, King begins paragraph 10 with a strong, confident, commanding tone. The anaphoric imperatives tell his listeners to “go back” to their home states, implying that they should demand justice in the places they hail from, and not be coerced to move elsewhere. The cadence, with its punctuated rhythm, accentuates the urgency of the present moment. The final biblical exhortative, “Let us not wallow in the valley of despair” hearkens back to the “desolate valley of segregation” in paragraph 5. Good communicators revisit phrases and images that they used previously because the message (in this case—claim your inalienable rights) is amplified.

The next section of the speech is the most famous because King utilizes ethos and pathos to connect his personal dream to the dream that all Americans share, regardless of skin color or geography. It is interesting to note that this section of the speech is the most quoted and remembered because human beings are emotional creatures; we remember most those sections of a speaker’s text that are highly emotive. Pathos and ethos always trump logos. The repeated “I have a dream” phrase is visionary, inspiring, and connected to the historically exceptional American Dream that is embedded in American history, literature, and culture. The American dream is the iconic embodiment of American values and ethos. Before there was America, there was this dream, especially rooted in the Enlightenment and echoed in Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, that “all men are created equal.” The allusion to the Declaration would kindle pride (pathos) in the hundreds of thousands before King on the Washington Mall that day, as well as those television viewers across the nation. The juxtaposition of “sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners” seated at a future “table of brotherhood” both inspires and heartens. Grounding his dream in the geography of America by mentioning southern states, King reminds all listeners of the concrete reality of racism, especially in the South. The geographical imagery continues with such phrases as “desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression” contrasted with the promising future place: “an oasis of freedom and justice.” The last sentence becomes extremely personal as King mentions his dream for his four children in a sentence that ends with the aphoristic “they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” King’s personal anguish and hope moves his audience because of its poignant honesty (ethos, pathos). King, like so many in America, is a father who wants the best for his children. The tone here is humble and heartfelt.

In paragraph 12, King elaborates on his vision with more examples (amplification); however, he now presents the inverse of the American Dream by referring to the racist actions of Governor Wallace in Alabama. Using loaded language and graphic imagery—“vicious racists,” “governor’s lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification,”—King calls attention to the inhumanity that has been taking place in Birmingham and other places throughout the country. Alabama refused to comply with the landmark United States Supreme Court Case (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954) that decided separate public schools for black and white students was unconstitutional. King’s tone is briefly angry and vehement; he knows that name calling (ad hominem attacks), however justified, may turn off the very people he is most hoping to persuade. When people feel attacked, they do not listen, so King balances the disturbing and negative imagery with imagery that is beautiful, uplifting, and emotional (pathos)--“little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers”—reiterating his themes of fairness and unity.

The tone/pitch of the rest of King’s speech becomes highly elevated and impassioned. Religious and musical imagery pervades, as King, like an Old Testament prophet, quickens his cadence and sustains his clarion call that all Americans should have the rights outlined in the nation’s founding documents. In paragraph 13, he alludes to Isaiah 40, when he proclaims, “every valley shall be exalted [notice the “valley” trope again], every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight.” King ends the paragraph by referencing the Second Coming of Christ—“the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together [emphasis mine].” The historical Jesus of Nazareth, who said in Mark 12:31, “Love your neighbor as yourself” is a compelling symbol for King’s central ethos: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that” (Martin Luther King, Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches).

Paragraph 14 introduces another shift; King moves towards the close of his speech. The structure of his argument thus far has been to introduce the central argument that blacks deserve civil rights, using logos for the first third of the speech. King followed that by utilizing ethos and pathos in his “I have a dream” sequence. And now King builds to his climax by concentrating on his future vision, his own “promised land.” He begins quite simply, humbly, and directly by stating, “This is our hope.” The repetition of “faith” in this paragraph continues to enhance the mood of optimism and bright possibility. King refers to hewing out of the “mountain of despair a stone of hope,” making it known that though the task at hand is overwhelming, even one small “stone” can be the foundation of a dream. The musical imagery returns with the words “jangling discords of our nation” being transformed into a “beautiful symphony of brotherhood” (antithesis). Out of a cacophony will emerge harmony. The theme of unity is accentuated by his repetition of the word “together” at the end of successive clauses (epistrophe), and King’s dream is recapitulated in the phrase that ends his paragraph—“we will be free one day.”

In the following paragraph, King underscores the promise of his vision with the anaphoric “this will be the day,” using the dash to create a dramatic pause before the second use of that phrase. He also includes the lyrics of “America,” a song that many American students sing every morning after the Pledge of Allegiance, which would move his audience emotionally (pathos). His speech has literally and figuratively become a song of hope for the American nation. The lyrics, with the words, “From every mountainside,/Let freedom ring” brilliantly refer back to the mountain trope King introduced earlier, building upon the leitmotif of music and the core message of civil rights for all with the word “freedom.”

The dramatic one-line paragraph 16 creates a moment of pause and reflection for all those who have been listening to his words. The quiet moment of this paragraph dramatically introduces the climax of his speech.

Co-opting the “let freedom ring” phrase, King, in the following two paragraphs creates a litany of exhortative sentences that grounds his vision in the American landscape. The geographical trope returns as King calls for freedom to be proclaimed from “mountains.” The mountain is a religious symbol—consider Moses standing atop Mount Pisgah looking at the Promised Land that he, himself, never reached. King also would die before the fruition of his vision—America today, a more perfect union evidenced by less racism and the first black president.

The brilliance of King’s rhetoric is obvious in his artful descriptors of the various mountains—“prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire,” the alliterative “mighty mountains of New York,” “heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania,” “snowcapped Rockies of Colorado,” and the use of both alliteration and consonance in “curvaceous peaks of California.” Such attention to varied descriptors elicits the beauty of our homeland, arousing patriotism (pathos) and unifying his listeners. His topographical imagery reminds Americans that they are one people who share a common landscape and a communal dream of freedom and civil rights, irrespective of the state that they call home.

King skillfully organizes paragraphs 17 and 18 by geographical location. The states in paragraph 17 are more northern, where racism, while existent, is not as fervent as in the southern states. He begins paragraph 18 with the excellent transition word “but,” which powerfully reminds his audience that we should aspire to “let freedom ring” not only in the North, where it might be easier at this point in history, but most importantly in the southern states (the setting of paragraph 18), like Alabama, where acts of hatred and injustice towards blacks are especially prevalent. Because Birmingham, Alabama, was the site of so many acts of brutality and violence against blacks, it was often referred to as “Bombingham.” So King is implying, that though the struggle will be arduous, especially in the southern states, the struggle for justice must continue even in the most formidable locales.

The last paragraph begins with a cascading, lyrical periodic sentence that anticipates literally and figuratively the decisive end, “when all God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last!’ ” The Negro spiritual was and is a symbol of black Americans’ struggle, perseverance, and strength in the midst of oppression and racism during the long history of our nation. King repeats these lyrics in a dramatic exclamatory sentence that reveals history, purpose, hope, and the aspiring and inspiring “We are free at last!”