MLK

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A bs paper I wrote yesterday. Definitely pulled this one out of my butt. In “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King Jr. used many analogies, and other forms of speech. MLK Jr. used ethos (a mode of persuasion) a lot in this letter. He also used bible passages, Martin Luther quotes, Abraham Lincoln quotes, and so on. In the sentence “Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.” King is comparing himself to Paul, one of Jesus’s apostles. This is effective because he is writing to clergymen, and is a minister himself. By doing this, he is making a very good point to the clergymen. These quotes helped King by creating a ledge of intelligence that people now pictured him on. Another quote that MLK Jr. uses is “Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.” Here he is referencing Socrates. He has a darker tone when referencing other people, and I believe it’s to show the contrast of the right and wrong doings of the time settings. He is showing that these were respected men, who changed things during their time as he should be allowed to do.A smart way MLK Jr. uses his words is when using words that can have double meanings (deeper) such as cages. Dr. King referred to discrimination and poverty as putting people in cages as if they were wild animals. “...when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society…” This really hits home to many people. “Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.” This quote has a lot of figures of speech. There are similes and metaphors. King compares the darkness of injustice to the light of national opinion. At the same time he compares the injustice to a medical problem such as a boil. Here is yet another metaphor, “...here were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?” King is saying complacency is like dark dungeons, while protest are like bright hills. King truly uses his words powerfully, and makes the writing hit hard to any person who read the letter.