Rhetorical Mlk Speech "Beyond Vietnam"

Martin Luther King (MLK) was an activist and a minister who claimed that the war on Vietnam was wrong. In front of over 3000 people at the New York Riverside Church King preaches to a room filled with clergy and laymen concerned about the Vietnam. His main purpose was to try to persuade the audience to put an end to the war so we could provide resources to others in need like the poor. In order to persuade his listeners King used a variety of devices to convince them to look at the war in his perspective devices by using loaded language to give powerful statements, imagery to let us create a mental picture of how the war is causing pain, and anaphora to emphasize his points.

In early 1967 Martin Luther king wrote the speech “Beyond Vietnam” to try change the way people see the war to see how it’s affecting everyone. In front of over 3,000 people at the New York Riverside Church MLK declared his claims on the war on Vietnam knowing the consequences that the speech could impact his life. In his speech he talks about how the war on Vietnam is affecting both the United States and the Vietnamese people. King believes that the war is wasting the resources we should be using on the black poor in the US and if we were to stay quiet, we would be accepting the war. He then goes on to say what we should do to stop the war in a non-violent way so we could be doing better than wasting resources on something so futile.

King uses different ways to try to persuade his audience on seeing the war on his perspective, one of the strategy king uses is imagery. King uses imagery all along the essay to make the readers see the horrors of the war. For example, “we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor,” The use of imagery in this quote is very well put by King, he’s trying to make his audience feel the pain and sorrow by creating this image in their head to interact with their emotions. Another example of imagery that king uses to try to convince his readers is when he says, 'Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools' using segregation and the war of Vietnam is putting more emotions on the people hearing the speech because it’s basically saying that we already caused the black pain by separating from society but now we must send them to die? The use of imagery helps King tap into the emotions of his audience to try and convinces them to change their thoughts on the war.

Throughout the speech king uses anaphora which helps the audience understand what he is trying to convey. For instance, “We must …We must…We must” when he continues to say the words “We must” it makes the audience feel like it’s more of a let’s do it together than a command. It’s so effective because he’s not saying that everyone must do it, but he’s giving them a choice to do the right thing and end the war. Another example would be “For the sake… For the sake…For the sake” the use of this anaphora is effective because he’s trying to tell us for the sake of the boys, government, and hundreds trembling under our violence that he must speak out and speak for the ones that don’t have a voice. Kings uses this rhetoric devices to show us his emphasis on the topic, the more he stresses it the more it attracts the audience to listen and change their minds.

Although there are more than three rhetoric devices that king uses to convince his audience to change their minds about the war on Vietnam there’s one more that he uses through all the text. The way that King uses his language is different than the regular type of language. King uses more of a loaded language which tries to persuade his audience by using words that appeal to emotion. For instance, when MLK says “as long as it draws men and money like some demonic destructive suction tube” the choice of words in this quote are very blunt it allows the audience to see that manipulations of the poor, King is hoping for emotions to go up when saying this quote. He also tries to affect us with the following quote “If Americas soul becomes poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam” he effects our emotions here by saying that the Vietnam War is what killed the world that we live in. This terrifying world would successfully change the minds of the people hearing this speech. MLK’s use of loaded language in his speech provided an extra power to his arguments so it wouldn’t be so plain.

Martin Luther King effectively used many rhetoric devices in his speech “Beyond Vietnam” but the rhetoric devices imagery, loaded language, and anaphora’s gave the speech a more well-built structure because their all around the speech. Imagery gave us the ability to feel what King was saying because we were able to see it happening in our minds. Anaphora’s made him connect with the audience by repeating on phrase, but it impacted a lot. Lastly loaded language made the speech better because those words effected our emotions. Since he had such good arguments when he finished declaring his point on the war there was no doubt some of all those men and women in the church had a different opinion on the war.