Brittany Allcorn, Spring 2010
Over the years rhetoric has come to signify a manipulative and persuasive tool associated with politicians who use it to try and mold the minds of their audience. However, as many scholars like to note, rhetoric is not a simple persuasive tool but is a fountain of logic, expression, and art. Rhetoric is an art that must be invented and formed with a specific audience in mind. To describe how rhetoric is not just mere persuasion and manipulation I will analyze Martin Luther King’s most famous speech, “I Have a Dream.” King’s dream serves not only as persuasion, but as inspiration. “I Have a Dream” is not a plain speech lacking the essentials of art or grandeur, but is a masterpiece of words hardly ever witnessed by human ear and mind. King’s speech is the epitome of all things inspirational, and, although made of words, artfully beautiful. Persuasion is the last of its attempts, and yet it still reigns as rhetoric.
Most speeches go beyond being strictly action oriented and fact driven. Speeches are often embedded with simple uses of figures of speech as well as other poetic devices. In their book “Modern Rhetorical Criticism” both Roderick Hart and Suzanne Daughton explain rhetoric as an art. They explain that although rhetors can add poetical devices in their speeches they must use only simplistic devices that an audience can easily understand. In his book “History and Theory of Rhetoric” James Herrick also describes rhetoric as an art that, “can render [language] more persuasive, beautiful, memorable, forceful, [and] thoughtful,” (7). A rhetor must contemplate over what to say before he speaks, and must invent a speech that is conformed to his audience. The act of invention is associated with the act of creating art because both involve imagination.
King’s speech is filled with different forms of figurative language. Crowley and Hawhee explain in their book that speakers can use different forms of ornaments in order to create a specific style. An ornament is any type of, “language that [is] unusual or extraordinary,” (Crowley and Hawhee 285). Figures of speech are a type of ornament, and are often used within King’s speech. King uses personification when he says not to drink, “from the cup of bitterness and hatred,” (8). He compares the Declaration of Independence to a bounced check, and uses metaphor when he states, “the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity,” (3). King often artistically adds figures of speech into his dialogue in order to keep the attention of his audience and make his speech poetic. In creating his speech King closely resembled a poet in the fact that both artists use a lot of creativity and time.
Hart and Daughton give six function of rhetoric: rhetoric unburdens, rhetoric distracts, rhetoric enlarges, rhetoric names, rhetoric empowers, and rhetoric elongates. Although both authors refer to the rhetor as “persuader” at times, they do not list the act of persuading as one of the functions of rhetoric. The first function, unburdening, is described as the act of a rhetor, “[refusing] to let history take its slow, evolutionary course, and instead [trying] to become part of history,” (14). This is precisely what King does in his speech by challenging societal behavior that had been occurring for decades. King also triumphantly took his place in history by involving himself in the issues present during his lifetime. He takes a stand against segregation and racism to unburden his own mind and heart and put his thoughts on display. Hart and Daughton explain that rhetors are, “always convinced that they must try,” (14) to make a difference. King expresses this same belief by telling his audience that, “as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back,” (11-12). The finish line was in sight for King, and although the racers were tired, quitting was not an option.
Hart and Daughton explain that the function of distracting occurs when, “a rhetor wants to have all, not just some, of our attention [and] To get that attention, the rhetor must so fill up our minds that we forget, temporarily at least, the other ideas, people, and policies important to us,” (15). The audience‘s attention should strictly adhere to what the rhetor is saying. To get our attention King begins his speech by relating to the past when, “a great American…signed the Emancipation Proclamation… [and brought] a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in flames of withering injustice,” (2). He uses language that enlivens his speech, and a situation that is specifically molded to that of his audience’s own experiences and ancestry to keep the attention of his audience.
The function of rhetoric enlarging occurs when a rhetor, “asking us to consider a new solution to an old problem… [by equating] things we had never before considered equatable,” (Hart and Daughton 16). King makes a comparison between the Declaration of Independence’s statement that all men are created equal to a banking check. He explains that, “Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America had given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds,’”(4). King also made comparisons to the dilemma he and his fellow African Americans faced to the problems his and his audience’s ancestors also faced. Making these comparisons inspires his audience to make their own comparisons, which keeps his audience interested in what he says.
Rhetoric as a naming function is said to, “provide audiences with an acceptable vocabulary for talking about ideas” and “publicly” label ideas or events (Hart and Daughton 17). Although King does not put a new label to an event in his speech, but the title of his speech has become widely associated with his message of desegregation, equal rights, and dreaming of better days. His speech has put a name to an era of political turmoil and racial tensions. Whenever someone hears the title of his speech a set of connotations instantly comes to their minds.
Hart and Daughton state that the function of empowering is normally associated with empowering the speaker, but because a speaker must have, “qualities [that] are shared with the voters [ or audience],” (18) he is also empowering the audience. By King calling on his audience to take action and fight for their rights he is empowering them with notions of success. He is empowered by his audience’s attention and cheers of understanding and agreement, but his speech mainly focuses on inspiring his audience and therefore empowers his audience more than himself.
Hart and Daughton directly connect the sixth function of rhetoric elongating to King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. They explain that the act of elongating is when time, “seems to be extended-when rhetoric is put to use,” (Hart and Daughton 18). Hart and Daughton go on to state that King elongated his speech by making the “future seem to be the present,” (18). King constantly speaks of the future, his “dreams,” in a way that makes the future seem not only possible but present. In this sense he is elongating time. He was able to make his audience forget about the past by revealing what he believed the future would be like.
Herrick also reveals five characteristics that he believes are inseparable from rhetoric. Unlike Hart and Daughton, Herrick does state persuasion as one of the main characteristics of rhetoric. The other four characteristics are that rhetoric is planned, adapted to an audience, shaped by human motives, and responsive to a situation (Herrick 7-8). Herrick explains that planning involves a rhetor asking, “Which arguments will I advance? Which evidence best supports my point? How will I order and arrange my arguments and evidence,” (8). Although we have no proof that King asked himself all these questions we can be almost certain that he thoroughly planned out his speech before it was given. His discourse is well organized and directed toward his audience and therefore shows that some forethought was put into it.
A rhetor cannot blindly go into a speech or presentation without first having understood what his audience expects, wants, and believes. Herrick explains that, “Rhetoric is planned with some audience in mind,” (8). A rhetor must attend, “to an audience’s values, experience, beliefs, social status, and aspirations,” (Herrick 9). King often uses the word “we” to not only associate himself with his audience, but also to involve them in his speech. King attends to his audience’s experiences by explaining present sufferings and events they more than likely went through in the past. He examines all of the racism they still encounter when he states, “We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the morals of the highways,”(13). He also calls upon his audience’s aspirations of a better and more equal life by stating his dreams of a better tomorrow.
The third characteristic, rhetoric reveals human motives, is easy to see within King’s speech. Herrick explains that this characteristic occurs when, “Rhetors address audiences with goals in mind…The motives animating a rhetorical discourse include… forging an agreement that makes peaceful coexistence possible,” (10). King is speaking to his audience based on his desire to create equal rights, and his motive to make “peaceful coexistence possible.” He had, “a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,’” (17). He is promoting equality and instilling a sense of hope into his audience. His motives for the speech are openly admitted, and he tries to inspire the same motives and the same wants in his audience.
Herrick explains that in order for rhetoric to be responsive it must spring from, “a situation or…a previous rhetorical statement,” (11). King’s beginning statement about the Declaration of Independence’s broken promise for equality is a pristine example of the situation that led King to give his speech. His speech is in response to growing agitation over racism and unfair treatment. Herrick also explains that rhetors should, “imagine likely [critical] responses as they compose their rhetorical appeals,” (11). Some members of King’s audience may have argued that Caucasians promised African Americans nothing, but King anticipates this and reminds everyone of the Declaration of Independence and its promise to all men.
The act of persuading an audience is defined as, “[influencing] an audience to accept an idea, and then to act in a manner consistent with that idea,” (12). What would be considered persuasion in King’s speech is more inspirational than manipulative. He wants to inspire his audience to keep fighting for their rights, or for their fellow human’s rights. He tells them not to give up, but he does not have to persuade them to do something they gathered to do in the first place. He inspires them to keep on the same track they have started on. He tells his audience, “Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice,” (6). This could be considered a form of persuasion for those of his audience that came to hear the speech and were not already there for the purpose of changing things, but for others it was a push in the direction they were already headed.
Rhetoric entails much more than just mere manipulation. Hart and Daughton both leave out persuasion from their characteristics in order to show the reader that rhetoric has many other defining characteristics. Herrick describes persuasion as a defining function of rhetoric, but he names several others as well. By doing this he eliminates the belief that persuasion is the main role of rhetoric. Rhetoric has a variety of other qualities and functions other than persuasion. Rhetoric is a way to bring new ideas into discussions and offer an argument that may be against the mainstream one. Rhetoric can be and do many things.
Works Cited
Crowley, Sharon, and Debra Hawhee. Ancient Rhetorics: for Contemporary Students. New York: Pearson Education, 2004.
Hart, Roderick, and Suzanne Daughton. Modern Rhetorical Criticism. Boston: Pearson Education, 2005.
Herrick, James. The History and Theory of Rhetoric. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2001.
King, Martin L. “I Have a Dream” 1963. 10 May 2010 <http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm>