The black race has dealt with much turmoil in the past. They have been used, sold, bought, enslaved, and treated inhumanely, among other things. They were too afraid to address this problem for fear that they would get treated even worse. One man had the courage to stand up for his people, and when he did, he did a beautiful job of making his point. In his “I Have A Dream” speech, Dr. King uses many literary devices to get his point of racial equality across. He uses simile and metaphor to compare and contrast the rights that white and black people have, he uses symbolism to let you get a better understanding of what he’s talking about, and he uses repetition to get his point across. Dr. King uses similes and metaphors in order to allow you to see his point in a clearer manner. He refers to the rights that our forefathers bestowed upon us as a “promissory note to which every American was to fall heir”. This means that all men, black, white, or any other color, were created equally, and should be treated equally. They should all have equal and inalienable rights, just as the Constitution states. Then he goes on to say that black people got an “invalid check”, which means that they did not receive the equal rights that the white people did. They were treated harshly and in a very inhumane manner. They couldn’t stand up for themselves because it would cause even more problems, and no one would believe them. They were thought of as dirty and no better than a dog. They had to do things at facilities separate from white people. These were not the rights that were promised to them, so Dr. King had it right. Dr. King uses symbolism to show you what he means, and to trigger imagery. He refers to gradualism as a “tranquilizing drug”. In a sense it is. Gradualism is basically the act of not trying to make a change, even though there needs to be one. It’s relying on others to do the work for you because you don’t want to. By this statement, he is trying to get people to take a stand for what they want, or what they need. He also states that the discontent is “a sweltering summer”. If you ever think of hot, sweltering summers, you’d think of hard labor, strong endurance, more days than needed, and no rest. This is exactly what the black race went through. They suffered a long time, and had to endure so many inhumane things, no person could ever imagine. Dr. King uses repetition to make his point sink in. Back then, no one would listen to black people, so he had to get his point across somehow. In one of his paragraphs, King repeats the words “one hundred years ago” to state the time span between when the desegregation started, and that particular point in time, and to emphasize how little things have changed when they were supposed to. When things were promised to change for black people, that gave them a new hope for the future. When they did not receive what was promised to them, they got rightfully angry. King goes on to tell about his dream for the American people. He repeats the famous words “I have a dream” over and over in order to let the white population know that he has thoughts for Americas future regarding the white and black races. King was standing up for his people, so that his thoughts could come alive, and America would change for blacks. By using the literary devices that he did, King made his speech come to life. He got his point across and knew how to make it powerful, and how to make his point resound across America. His point was unalienable rights and freedom to all, and he made a change in the world. No one thought it could be done, but King knew that with God, anything was possible. Everyone on the black race thought it would take a big miracle in order to be free and treated justly, and that is exactly what Dr. King was, a miracle.
