MLK Notes

Tim Rezendes
AP English
10/7/09
Outline

Letter From Birmingham Jail
Outline

I. Diction
A. Martin Luther King is relentless with his attack and his word choice is outstanding considering the fact that he is inside of a jail with no outside resources.
B. He is also very assertive with his choice of words
1. An example of his assertiveness comes when he says, “I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say wait.”
C. MLK’s letter is also filled with numerous instances of imagery.
1. “Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding sill be lifted from our fear-drenched communities and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all of their scintillating beauty.”
• The thing that stands out most to me about this quote is the way that King starts with the bad by describing dark clouds of racial prejudice and ends with the good by saying things such as radiant stars of love and brotherhood.

II. Syntax
A. King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail contains various forms of syntax including parallelisms, juxtapositions, and antitheses.
B. One of King’s most effective way to present a good argument is the way he answers his own rhetorical questions.
1. He needs to attack any counter argument that a white person could say because he could easily be discredited because of one mishap due to the fact that he is black
C. Another affective form is his use of periodic sentence
1. He uses semicolons so that his sentence seems to run on and build to a climax

III. Literary Appeals
A. To start, King’s ethos is not as good as some other people due to the fact that he is black in the wrong time period; it has nothing to do with his writing which is brilliant.
B. To compensate for this King’s writing has to be flawless, and it is.
C. King’s logos is also very good, he brings up rights that black people are entitled to.
D. King is very much into his writing emotionally because it is his life, he is living the struggle of a black man in the United States.