I Have a Dream Speech

A speech is comprised of a route that guides how the audience is persuaded. For a speech
to be completely persuasive, it must consider the observers’ group and what influences what they
are thinking about and its importance. It is essential to keep in mind that the end goal is to
achieve each speech’s right objective. The audience can relate and comprehend the speech and
have them put the speech in full contemplation of their everyday experience of the speech’s
expressions. The arts used in delivering a speech include; syllogisms, logical fallacies, and
rhetorical appeals.
The Martin Luther King speech, “I Have a Dream,” is the speech of choice. A syllogism
is defined as the rethinking of the clarification to express the arguments and ensure that the first
importance is not lost. It is the speaker’s responsibility to be quick to reformulate the thought and
use the suggestion consciously. Syllogism makes sure that that prose is expressed in a manner
that retains its original argument. An example of a syllogism is: “No wealthy persons are
vagrants; “Lawyers are wealthy people,” and “lawyers are vagrants; the three sentences can be
reduced into a single sentence by combining the first two. It illustrates that one of the sentences
has been used as an implication of the other sentences. In his speech, Martin Luther King views
justice as having the capability to smooth freely like water in a stream. When a speech follows
the rules of syllogism, it satisfies the audience it is intended to satisfy. It signifies that justice will
bring about satisfaction.
Fallacies are defined as defects that will not make an argument as strong as it is supposed
to. It states that even if the point is strong, the argument behind it should be made stronger
enough not to be disapproved based on illogical grounds. Such cases are very difficult to identify
and are observed on common arguments. It is essential to find out if a certain statement is

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fallacious or it is fallacious free. Different characteristics can be used to define if a statement or
an argument in any speech is fallacious or not. A Fallacious statement or argument is
characterized by having generalizable statements that are not detailed and sometimes even miss
the point that there are supposed to pass.
The Martin Luther King speech appeals for the end of racism in the United States. He
appeals to his audience’s emotion by portraying that he understands what the black Americans
are going through. “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where
they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Martin
Luther is appealing to emotion because he tells his dream, but he wants to show that he
understands how it feels to be treated differently and judged by his skin color. “With this
devotion, we will be able to hew out of the peak of misery a stone of optimism. With this
devotion, we will be able to convert our nation’s jangling discords into a lovely masterpiece of
brotherhood. With this devotion, we will be able to toil, to pray, and to struggle, go to jail, stand
up for freedom as one people, deliberate that we will be free one day.” Martin Luther uses
circular reasoning, indicating that through togetherness and brotherhood the having no racism,
the blacks and the whites can work together to achieve greatness.
One hundred years later, the black man still is not free. One hundred years later, the black
man’s life is still sadly disabled by the chains of isolation and the chains of discrimination. One
hundred years later, the black man lives on a lonely island of poverty amid a massive ocean of
material prosperity. One hundred years later, the black man is still weakened in the corners of
American society and finds himself a refugee in his land. And so we’ve come here today to
embellish a disgraceful condition.” Martin Luther uses the straw man because he states and
illustrates how the black community is treated unfairly and how he hopes that people will realize

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this as a problem. “But we fail to accept that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to accept
as true that there are inadequate resources in the great vaults of this country’s prospect. And so,
we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon claim the riches of freedom and the
sanctuary of justice.” Martin shows diversion because he ensures that he changes the subject to
indicate that the argument and the point he is making is real and not a fallacy (Lischer, 2019). 
The speech by Martin Luther demonstrates the power of rhetoric and how it influences
the audience. Martin utilizes symbolism, powerful diction, and symbolic imagery as a way of
causing an effect on the audience. The rhetorical strategies will demonstrate pathos, ethos, and
logos to help the audience comprehend the message that Martin Luther wanted to pass. His
speech begins with a very strong use of dictation that makes a logical and emotional appeal to
the audience. Martin targets African Americans living in the United States. He begins by saying
how grateful he is for everyone who attended the demonstration. He calls it “the greatest
demonstration of freedom” At this stage of the speech, he is already creating an appeal of pathos.
Martin creates a logical appeal by stating that the Emancipation Proclamation gave “hope to
Millions of Negro slaves who had seared in the flames of withering injustice.” The first event
where African Americans were seen to improve in the social hierarchy ladder was the
Emancipation Proclamation. To produce an appeal of emotion and logic, Dr. Martin uses the
repetition of words and anaphora at the beginning of sequential clauses. He does this by
emphasizing the fact that t has been over a hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation,
and still “the life of the black man is still badly crippled by the chains of isolation and the chains
of discrimination,” the black man lives on a lonely island of deficiency amid a vast ocean of
physical prosperity,” “the black man is still weakened in the corners of American culture and
finds himself an exile in his land.” Martin Luther repeats the words “One hundred years later the

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Negro…” which aims to speak to the audience mostly composed of the African-Americans and
let them know that they are still under oppression and change must come.
Martin Luther uses symbolism and figurative speech to help him get the message across
to the audience that there should be equality for all races. A good example of symbolism and
symbolic speech is in the second paragraph, where he compares the “sacred obligation” given to
the African-American as a bad check and checks that returns are marked. “sufficient funds.” He
shows that the United States has given the African-American promises that they have failed to
achieve. Martin Luther tries to connect through symbolism, emotional appeal, and logic (Smith,
2017). He demonstrates that the American community has promised the Black community the
opportunity to be empty. Martin Luther uses his speech to illustrate that he refuses to accept as
true that the bank of justice is bankrupt, and he uses anaphora to show that he does not believe
“there are inadequate resources in the great vaults of prospects of this nation.” The speech by
Martin Luther is more about calling his audiences to action and rise to fight for their freedom.

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References

Lischer, R. (2019). The preacher king: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the word that moved
America. Oxford University Press.
Ringleben, J. (2017). Theological Language in Martin Luther. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia
of Religion.
Smith, C. R. (2017). Rhetoric and human consciousness: A history. Waveland Press.