Black, grey, and purple discolored painfully upon my body. Damaged to the touch. Facing my father knowing whatever I say I will be smacked. I will be whipped. I will be beat. I will have bruises. People hear about this dreadful experience, forgetting about the devastating action us whites exhibited towards African Americans. We distinguish people by the color washed up against their skin, not by the way they accomplish themselves. Eventually Martin Luther King Jr. decided that he would challenge the end of segregation movement.
To push the clergyman to act fast and have the people accept them even if the outside of them is stained by a different color in Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. uses rhetorical devices such as a pathos appeal, negative diction, and polyptoton. Pushing the clergymen to act fast Martin Luther King Jr. used pathos appeal to sketch a picture of how miserable they were treated. Pathos besmirched demanding emotions which forces readers to think about what contributions can be enforced to erase the corrupt society of the segregation era.
For an example, “…. racial injustice engulfs this community” (Paragraph 6, Letter from a Birmingham Jail). The word “engulf” splatters in your mind; as a reader once I read that sentence and understand the striking action “engulf” paints. I emotionally become attached to how spread out segregation runs throughout the southern communities. Telling the clergyman to act fervently wouldn’t work, you must have persuaded them, demanding freedom. Like in paragraph eight when Martin Luther King Jr. tates, “Having aided in this community need, we felt that our direct action program could be no longer delayed. ” Segregation needed a resolution immediately, and by using the words “no longer delayed” impacted the paragraphs of Letter from a Birmingham Jail by showing that the topic of segregation needed revised.
One of the most controversial outlooks of U. S history was–who should vote– that questions painted opinions into people’s minds, yet all of those people’s minds consisted of different view on who should be allowed to vote. Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negro from becoming registered voters, and there are some sort of counties, even though Negro constituted a majority of the population, not a single Negro is a registered voter. ” (Paragraph 14). The effects of segregation towards voting is really heavy, because most southern communities are generated by blacks, yet not a single one can represent their opinion on a ballet.
Martin Luther King Jr. sed pathos to push the clergyman to act fast, yet to show all people deserved equality treatment and to illustrate a dark image of the inhumanity of segregation Martin Luther King Jr. used negative diction. Negative diction language in Letter from a Birmingham Jail contributed to create a sense of brutality that segregation played. To trace dark emotions upon readers most authors will use the concept of negative diction. For instance, “Harried by day and haunted by night”(Paragraph 11, Letter from a Birmingham Jail). The words “harried” and “hunted” make you feel scared, sick to the stomach.
A spine-chilling pity will roam through your body. Allowing no positive emotion to be sense. Negative diction stained murky words into the Clergyman’s mind, making it almost impossible to ignore the action that is required for a resolution The word “devious” in paragraph 14 stained a picture into the reader’s mind of something dark, something with no positive side towards it. Negative diction allowed for a reader to feel sad. Never will they feel a beatific sense coming upon them. For an example, “stinging darts” (Paragraph 11) illustrated an image of darts impaled into someone’s skin.
Blood dripped down staining the floor old wooden floor red. Tears ran off your check. Pain quenched into your bones. Martin Luther King Jr. demeanor allowed for readers to feel connected with the cruelty towards blacks.. In another case, Martin Luther King Jr utilized polyptoton to stain the paragraphs of Letter from a Birmingham Jail with the same root word, allowing readers to understand what blacks went through. Getting the point across and allowing reader’s to comprehend segregations brutality martin Luther King Jr. uses polyptons. Polyptons enforce the same root word in the sentence.
Their main purpose established main points, yet allow the reader to concentrate more on what the author is trying to say. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (Paragraph 4, Letter from a Birmingham Jail). When you think of injustice, you think of wrong, yet when you think of justice you think of right. The two completely opposite meanings forced reader to comprehend what Martin Luther King Jr. was trying to generate. Yet polyptoton can make a story seem more interesting; therefore allowing great connections between the author and the reader.
In paragraph 13 “It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of interiority” (Letter from a Birmingham Jail). Segregate meaning dyed strong emotions already, yet when you use that root word twice it dyed a more definite idea of the cruelty of segregation. Polyptons are another form of repetition; when author integrate repetition they use it to establish a point or emphasize the importance of one word. “Whatever affects one directly, affects of indirectly” (Paragraph 4). The repeated root word “directly” allowed readers gain emotions towards the effect.
Forcing the readers to comprehend the actual sense of living segregation, Martin Luther King Jr. used polyptons. Martin Luther King Jr. used a variety of strongly discolored literary figures in the “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” that allowed for the readers to be engaged in at all times, and help urge the clergyman to act quickly. The effects of the literary devices trace a representation of how segregation needed resolved. Stained by bruises, flinching every time I see a hand rise. Fearfully knowing that the last hit never comes, yet none of that will ever compare to the horrible phenomenon of what segregation brought upon the blacks.
