Introduction
Martin Luther King’s speech “I have been to the mountaintop” (1968) is a powerful speech with both sacramental and rhetorical meaning. The speech was intended to support sanitation workers in Mason Temple, Memphis. Its initial purpose is to address American society’s social injustice and civil rights issues. It was also symbolically the speech the night before King’s assassination. These facts bring historical significance to this rhetorical analysis. Overall, the speech provides the tone of the need for freedom, unity, and equality for both races in the US.
Rhetorical Analysis
The main topic of the speech is the struggle with civil rights in the US and the level of fairness and justice they reached. He tries to emphasize the most significant issue of oppression of those who are at lower socioeconomic levels. Still, the tone is successful through several rhetorical devices.
One of the first devices is the repetition in the speech. The repetition of keywords, like “Something is happening,” enables listeners to link with the main topic and stay focused (King). In addition, King repeats, “I have been to a mountaintop” several times to have a symbolic representation and visualization of his ideas. A similar technique was used in his previous speeches as well.
The power of metaphors is also used to emphasize the greatness of modern times and a call to fight for it. This technique works for the idea of the whole text on the fight for justice. King’s comparison of ancient Greece, the Renaissance, and the Emancipation Proclamation signing day with modern times also implies the metaphorical importance of the action and creates interconnectedness of vision and reality. Metaphors of road and long journeys are also implied to emphasize the durability required to fight for justice.
Implications of speech were made to be practical yet realistic enough for the audience to understand them. King tries to keep main statements short, such as “The issue is injustice,” to clarify his views to the listeners. Similarly, he uses short sentences to imply similarity and unity when claiming, “We are poor.” King effectively creates a sense of belonging by using simple sentence structures.
King conveys the message to the audience by implying what is common to the listener’s topics, such as religion. King implies the religious sacredness of taking action against injustice and uses stories of Jesus and the Almighty to highlight their righteousness. Although this could be taken unconsciously, a religious framework creates a strong foundation and justification of the speech for listeners.
Lastly, King uses allusion to convey his ideas through fictional and historical events. For example, through the myth of Icarus, King emphasizes that justice and fairness can be long-lasting processes and require a significant amount of patience. He appeals to listeners’ shared knowledge and values by implying stories well-known to many people.
Conclusion
The “I Have Been to the Mountaintop” speech by Martin Luther King is a superb illustration of a speech that employed a variety of rhetorical strategies and was both powerful and effective. The speech was convincing and compelling enough to enable it to become historically significant, too. Still, it is possible to review how metaphors, allusions, or repetitions helped to build a strong yet understandable speech for King in the given speech.
Works Cited
King, Martin Luther. I Have Been to the Mountaintop, Mason Temple, 1968.