Stylistic Analysis of Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream Speech.

by shad_mahmood (student)

University Degree Linguistics, Classics and related subjects

Stylistic Analysis of “ I Have A Dream”

“All the fun is in how you say a thing.” Robert Frost’s words give us a perfect explanation about why style is so important in an article. According to Alan Warner, style is a way of writing, a manner of expressing one’s thoughts and feelings in words. A same meaning can have different effects on its readers by being put in different ways. This article is to take the famous speech of Martin Luther King as an example to analyze and discuss its stylistic characteristics. It is not only the spirit of equality and liberty advocated in the speech but also its impressive style that contribute to its great success.

Style—Author

Brooks and Warren, in an excellent book, Fundamental of Good Writing, have compared style to the grain in wood. “ The style of a work is not a sort of veneer glued over the outside. On the contrary, it is like the pattern of the grain in a piece of wood.” It is a pattern that goes all the way through: a manifestation of the growth and development of the stricture of the tree itself. As a man thinks and feels, so will he write. If his thoughts are muddled, his style will be muddled. If his thoughts are clear and sharp, his writing will be clear and sharp. “A man’s style,” wrote Emerson, “is his mind’s voice.” And he added: “ Wooden minds, wooden voices.” Since style is something ingrained in writing and not stuck on top like a veneer, it follows that a man’s way of wring will be an expression of his personality and his way of looking at life.

Martin Luther King, the follower of the nonviolent principles of Mahatma Grandhi, conveyed his belief to the audience through the whole speech. All he said about the poor living conditions of Negro and the discrimination against the black people was nothing but fact. That is, he didn’t say anything exaggerative or sensational to turn the listeners into riot. On the contrary, he stated clearly that they should “ struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline” instead of “degenerating into physical violence.” In addition, the author was also a supporter of eliminating the racial discrimination in society. In the speech, he formed a beautiful blue print of white and black people living equally and happily together.

I ‘d like to use the sentence given by Buffon, a French writer and naturalist of 18th century to sum up my idea: “ Le style, c’est l’homme meme.” (Style, it is the man himself.)

Clean English

This is a preview of the whole essay

I ‘d like to use the sentence given by Buffon, a French writer and naturalist of 18th century to sum up my idea: “ Le style, c’est l’homme meme.” (Style, it is the man himself.)

Clean English

In another sense, the word “style” is often used to mean good, clean English. Raymond Chapman, the author of A Short Way to Better English, states: “ Bad writing is caused not so much by mistakes in grammar as by weakness in style.” Weakness in style here means clumsiness of expression, lack of precision and accuracy, obscurity and ambiguity, and anything that hinders the writer from conveying his meaning clearly and vividly to the reader. In my opinion, the best way of describing English that is clear and vigorous, free from verbiage and affectations, and doing its job of conveying meaning cleanly to the readers. The following paragraphs will discuss the point of “clean English” from 4 aspects.

The Arrangement

This speech aims to call the attention of the whole society to the poor condition the blacks and the Negro were still in and highlight the urgent need to change it. The author didn’t state it immediately at the beginning of his speech. Instead, he started by mentioning the history. In this way, the author convinced his listeners that they had the right and obligation to make equality come true in the society because it was handed down from their ancestors. The author then brought out the discrimination and segregation black people were suffering in reality and further demonstrated the black people’s firm determination to overthrow the present world. If the author had kept on in this direction, the audience, especially those who had been long oppressed, would have raised a riot since the speech was emotion-stirring and to-the-bottom-of –the-heart. At this very moment, the author shifted from “ sensitivity” to “sense”. He made it very clear that nonviolent resistance was the best and only means for them to achieve their aim. They should “forever conduct the struggle on the high plan of dignity and discipline.” In the last part, he formed the blueprint of a peaceful happy world in which life and opportunity are equal to every person. He then again called for the audience to fight for the wonderful bright future life.

The arrangement of the whole speech is full of logical thinking. The author led the audience into his mind step by step. He finally succeeded in persuading them to be on his side and march ahead with him hand in hand.

The Figure of Speech

One of the main rhetoric means in the speech is metaphor. It is the author’s appropriate use of metaphor that makes abstract things concrete and sharps the audience’s mind. In short, it just hits the nail on the head.

Example 1: the black people: creditor

the government: debtor

The author compared the relationship between black people and the government to that of a creditor and a debtor. In this way, the author dramatized the fact that the black people had contributed a lot to the construction and prosperity of the society and it was time for them to be paid and get what they deserved because the black people had provided their service in advance. What’s more, the government had promised to improve the living conditions and eliminate discrimination in the society where colored people were concerned. It was their obligation to bring out equality in the true sense of the word.

Example 2: the urgent need for freedom: thirst for water

As is known to all that any being will surely die without water. In the author’s mind, freedom and justice was as important as water to him. Life would be meaningless and also impossible without them. The black people’s act of fighting for a better life and freedom was driven by their instincts. Freedom and justice are fundamental to a person’s life.

Except for the above, the author also described the persecution and police brutality as storms and winds, implying that though they seemed powerful, they would surely pass by and be replaced by a sunny day; the injustice which the Negro slaves were treated with as flames, reminding the audience of the unimaginable, horrible sufferings the Negro slaves went through; segregation and discrimination as manacles and chains, highlighting the fact that the black were crippled both physically and mentally.

Contrast & Metaphor:

Example 1: The rest of the American society is “a vast ocean of material prosperity” while “the Negro live on a lonely island.” I like this sentence very much because it gives us the sense that the Negro, the blacks were completely isolated. Island and ocean are two quite different things. The space of the ocean is much larger than that of the island. People on the oceans can “swim” freely and enjoy abundant resources while the island’s inhabitants are restricted within it, a solid earth. It can be inferred from here that the whites lived a much better life than the blacks and they all enjoyed the social welfare while the blacks were totally neglected.

Example 2: the quicksand of racial injustice V.S the solid rock of brotherhood

This use of contrast and metaphor conveys the meaning that racial injustice was just like quicksand----it was weak and bound to vanish. The brotherhood was like the solid rock----it would stand firmly and last forever.

Parallelism

It’s a common practice to use the method of parallelism in speeches on the grounds that it can easily catch the attention of the listeners, arouse their awareness, and make them join hand in hand with the speech. This speech is no exception.

Example: “Now is the time to make real the promises of Democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.”

The four sentences together start with the same phrase “Now is the time…” to make the listeners realize the urgent need to change the reality. The listeners have the sense of being driven to the edge by a kind of growing power----they must take action at once!

In conclusion, the stylistic characteristics of an article can reveal to readers some information about the author. What’s more, an article can impress its readers by its good, clean English.

References:

Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren, Fundamental of Good Writing (Dobson, 1952)

Alan Warner, A Shout Guide to English Style (London, Oxford University Press, 1961)

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Since “style” is the way of using language to express one’s thoughts and feelings, the most suitable pre-modifier to it is “appropriate” or “inappropriate” rather than “good”, “bad”, “strong” or “weak”.

In some sense, style is a person, or everyone has his style.

There is no person who has no style in the world.

That is why our study of one’s style starts with the choice of words, namely lexical level, and then turns to the choice of sentence structure, namely syntactic level, before discussing the use of figure of speech, namely semantic level. Besides, what is most likely to be neglected is the use of sound patterns, namely phonological level.

So much the better if you could follow the format of the thesis writing as shown in the PowerPoint of this course.