In the speeches, I Have A Dream by Martin Luther King Jr. and Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, both undergo difficulties and obstacles that affect everyone. Why do you believe these people come across these obstacles? These people come across these obstacles because of public issues but mainly because of government issues with other people or another government. In both speeches both people abuse rhetoric, some examples are parallelism, antithesis, epistrophe, and repetition, but the two we are focusing on are parallelism and epistrophe.
In the I Have A Dream speech MLK uses parallelism when he announces “One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.” He vocalizes this because over the years blacks still are not free and that they still don’t have all the rights that they need. In the Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation, FDR utilizes parallelism when he emphasizes that “Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands. Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island.” He declared this because he wanted to inform the public where the attacks were coming from.
In both speeches, they use epistrophe in order to inform and make the audience think about what they are really saying and to make them feel something. In MLK’s I Have A Dream speech he claims that “With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.” He makes this remark because he wanted to persuade the people to work together and that if they work together they can accomplish anything and if they work together they can get where we want to be at. In the speech, Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation FDR uses epistrophe when he insists that “There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.” He hypothesized this because he wanted to inform the people that they would never expect Japan to attack which made them in great danger because they were surprised by the attack.
In both pieces of evidence for MLK’s speech, the quotes show that he was trying to persuade his audience about how the laws were unfair and unjust. In both pieces of evidence for FDR’s speech, the quotes that were vocalized show that he was trying to inform the audience and the people about the attacks that were happening. In the end, I believe that MLK’s speech was more effective compared to FDR’s speech. MLK’s speech was more emotional which made the speech have more of an effect on the audience. FDR’s speech was more informational than emotional because when he said his speech he was emphasizing that they were under attack and that they were in danger because they never saw it coming because they were such good allies with Japan. FDR’s speech addresses an attack on our country by another country. MLK’s speech addresses an attack on the people within our country.
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