Listen to his speech here. Pay close attention to his use of repetition, articulation, word emphasis, and emotion. Also try to identify metaphors (he used dozens), allusions (to specific people and to literature), and parallelism. To point you in the right direction, I will identify some of the more obvious examples.
- In the second paragraph of the speech, MLK says, "Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation." He never names the American, but we know it is Lincoln because the speech is delivered from the Lincoln Memorial. The allusion here is to a speech Lincoln gave a hundred years earlier--"The Gettysburg Address"--which began "Four score and seven years ago."
- In the second paragraph alone, MLK compares the Emancipation Proclamation to a beacon of light, injustice to fire, captivity to a long night and freedom to a joyous daybreak. There are dozens of metaphors throughout the speech.
- MLK repeats the phrase "One hundred years later" four times in the third paragraph. This is an example of parallelism. Take it a step further and find the parallel paragraph that give a solution to the problem presented in the "One hundred years later" paragraph.
Write one to two pages in response to the speech. Find your own examples and make as many connections as possible.
