In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” as a response to a statement published in a newspaper by clergymen, accusing King’s peaceful resistance to racism in promoting violence. King was blamed for causing multiple disorders in the city, and being imprisoned he wrote a letter, addressing people who condemned him. To attract the audience’s attention and make people sympathize with black people suffering deprivations in the United States, he used different types of rhetorical devices, such as pathos, logos, and ethos, originally described by Aristotle.
In his letter, King demonstrates a skillful usage of all of these tools to state his position and make people understand the problem he is fighting for. The text of the letter contains numerous examples of rhetorical devices’ usages, with some of them being brighter and more influential than others.
Ethos is a stylistic device referring to ethics and the effort to convince the target audience of the credibility of the author. Aristotle described this concept as persuasion to make a speaker worthy of trust with the help of a character (Allen). It is an important tool for analyzing communication between people because it provides scholars with an opportunity to study persuasive speeches and identify strategies, which are used in them. This device can be manifested through the choice of appropriate language and vocabulary, by trying to look honest, and by documenting the areas of the expertise.
In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, Martin Luther King Jr. makes appeals to this method to increase his level of credibility concerning the subject of racial discrimination. At the beginning of the letter, King addresses the recipients as “My Dear Fellow Clergymen” (King 1). By writing it this way, the author immediately institutes his status, showing the clergymen that he is on the same level, and neither beneath nor above them.
In his opening phrase, King writes: “I am here because I have organizational ties here. But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here” (King 1). By this introduction sentence, he commences establishing credibility on the subject of social injustice. He also represents himself as a respectable person, referring to his “organizational ties” in Birmingham, demonstrating his high social status (King 1). In the next sentences, he uses more devices of ethos in introducing himself and demonstrates his knowledge of the subject of racial discrimination, suggesting that he is more qualified to speak about this problem than the clergymen. By using the rhetorical device of ethos King is skillfully increasing his credibility in the letter.
Another important device, frequently used by Martin Luther King Jr. in his letter is pathos, which was also described by Aristotle. In Merriam-Webster Dictionary, pathos is described as “an element in experience or artistic representation evoking pity or compassion” (Pathos).
This concept is characterized by arguments coming from the heart and appeals to the audience’s sympathy and emotions. Pathos can be manifested through an emotional tone of voice, both oral and written, pauses, and vivid metaphors. It can also be promoted by using different stories or carefully choosing vocabulary to catch the attention of the reader and make them act according to the author’s will. By using this device, King successfully grasps the audience’s attention making them sympathize with black people facing injustice in the United States.
King demonstrates the cruelty and injustice, which he has experienced and witnessed numerous times, to the reader. He uses vivid descriptions of violence against African Americans appealing to people’s feelings and emotions to make them understand the sufferings. King uses phrases such as “I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the policemen if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes” (King 5).
Such vivid vocabulary is targeted at forcing the audience to see the violence of the authorities. King is appealing to pathos throughout the entire letter, assuming that racism affects the whole society by saying phrases such as “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”, and “whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly” (King 1). The author makes an emotional appeal to people of all races, making them realize that oppression of one group causes sufferings to the whole community as the population cannot achieve success while segregation exists. As the result of the author’s use of pathos, the audience becomes more sympathetic to his views and beliefs, and millions of people agree with his position.
Logos is another stylistic tool, which was originally described by Aristotle. This concept implies an appeal to reason and logic by operating facts and statistics. To persuade the audience with the use of logos an author needs to ensure that he has found information, facts, and stories, which are meaningful for the audience, and that these materials would be presented sensibly (“Ethos, Pathos, Logos: The three pillars of persuasive communication”). The key aspect of this style is logic and close attention to conclusions, which should be consistent with the previously suggested ideas. All the claims should be supported by evidence, and arguments need to be simple and clear to the reader. In his letter, Martin Luther King Jr. successfully uses logos to appeal to logic and reason.
The author of the letter enhances his level of credibility by appealing to the facts, which helps him convict the audience in the rightfulness of his position. Among the examples is the fact presented in the beginning, “there have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in this nation.
These are the hard, brutal, and unbelievable facts” (King 1). King also justifies the actions, which were called by the clergymen “extremist”, by recalling historical facts of the situations in which such events brought positive changes to the society. He provides examples of famous characters, “was not Jesus an extremist for love… was not Amos an extremist for justice <…> and Abraham Lincoln… and Thomas Jefferson” (King 4). This sentence can be regarded as one of the most effective ones as Jesus had significantly influenced the lives of the clergymen, whom Martin Luther King addresses. By appealing to these historic characters, the author of the letter reminds his audience that those who were considered extremists, as the result made enormous contribution to society.
In conclusion, Martin Luther King Jr. in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, demonstrates a skillful usage of numerous rhetorical devices, including pathos, logos, and ethos. By applying these tools, the author appeals to the emotions of his audience, ensures his credibility, and uses logic to persuade the reader to agree with his position about racism and discrimination against black people in the United States. King is especially good at using pathos to attract the attention of the audience and call them to action by providing them with vivid images of the horrors he has witnessed and experienced. A combination of this style with ethos and logos allows King to present a powerful argument, which made millions of people understand his views and demands.
Works Cited
Allen, Mike. The SAGE Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods. 2017. Web.
“Ethos, Pathos, Logos: The Three Pillars of Persuasive Communication”. Persona Global Greece. 2017. Web.
King, Martin Luther Jr. Letter from a Birmingham. 1963. Web.
“Pathos.” Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Web.