On the occasion of the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King Jr, a preacher and civil rights leader, addressed not only African Americans, but all American civilians. The purpose of his rhetoric stems from the subject of immorality, in which he attempts to persuade the American people that this war in particular is exactly that, immoral. King crafts his beautifully persuasive text using various forms of personal anecdotes, appeals to emotion, as well as quality uses of diction and rhetorical devices to maximize the impact of his arguments.
The eloquent preacher uses his experiences through personal anecdotes to help persuade the American public about the injustices of the events in Vietnam. For example, he talks in a detailed manner about working with young men in the North over summers in the ghetto. Using these personal anecdotes have an impactful purpose with his persuasion. Providing personal anecdotes to the audience helps his appeal to his credibility. The readers have more if a reason and ability to take the rhetoric seriously when they realize the speaker is indeed experienced with the subject. Moreover, providing a personal anecdote also forces the reader to think of a time when, going parallel to the personal anecdote in block 3, they have been in communication with impoverished, discriminated young people. In turn, this draws more of a personal connection between the audience and the speaker. This then allows the reader to be more receptive to the rest of the rhetoric, allowing for greater potential to be persuaded that war in Vietnam is truly unjust.
Secondly, the speaker appeals his persuasion directly to the audience by using appeals to their emotions, or pathos. In block 4, he states “no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war.” Using this particular sentence appeals to the audience’s guilt and empathy. The reasoning for this being such is that he asserts this statement after revealing evidence of how the poor are being harmed by this war. This forces any member of the American public who ever supported the war to feel immense guilt as they have indirectly been supporting negativity in the lives of those who live in poverty. This, however, would cause them to abruptly switch their views into believing the war as immoral, which was exactly King’s purpose. Also, this too appeals to the emotions of those who never gave the war much thought at all. The assertion activates empathy out of all readers for the poor men being sent to fight for a self-deprecating cause. Again, this in turn causes the reader to draw toward King’s initial viewpoint, the war being unjust, unnecessary, and immoral.
Lastly, Martin Luther King uses a powerful use of diction and other rhetorical devices to maximize the impact of his arguments on his readers. For example, he uses very powerful and urgent diction when he calls the US government the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” Using powerful diction as such creates a larger emphasis on the point he makes, and the effect on the audience is that they remember these points more, causing them to be even more deeply attached to the root of King’s rhetoric. Continuing, King also employs the use of irony. For example, in block 2, he states, “We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem.” Using this ironic diction and tone allows the reader to make connections and connect the dots of the situation on their own. Using ironic examples allows the audience to think by themselves rather than just be a recipient of statistics and percentages. The powerful use of rhetoric irony is, empowers the reader to slightly stem away from King and the think about the topic on their own. The effect of this empowerment is that it draws the audience to be more caring and give more attention to King, helping him, in turn, to persuade about the war now that he has even more of their attention.
The mere fact of the difficulty to dissect this piece of rhetoric displays the true power of persuasion King possessed. In summary, King used personal experiences, pathos, and tactical diction to powerfully persuade the American public to believe that the then current war in Vietnam was truly an example of immorality.
The original passage, (SAT practice essay #2): https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/sat-practice-test-2-essay.pdf