Letter from Birmingham Jail Notes

Rachael Kerr
AP English
October 8,2009
MLK Letter Notes

Diction
-Aggressive, assertive, relentless
Tone
-Impassioned, powerful (King 72)
Syntax
-Parralelisms
• “I don’t believe you would…I don’t believe you would…if you would watch them push and cure old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you would see them slap and kick old Negro men and young Negro boys” (751)
-Juxaposition
• “The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward the goal of political independence and we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter” (742)
• He places our situation next to that of what would e considered less progressive nations in order to accentuate our misunderstanding
-Antitheses
• “They have carved a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment”(750)
-Inversion
• “One has not only a legal but moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws”(743)
• Forces you to consider a commonly held belief from a new perspective
• By altering someone’s perspective you are forcing them to think from the view you have asserted
-Cumulative
• “I say it as a minister of the gospel who loves the church;who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen”(748)
• Uses additional info to strengthen the point at the beginning
-Periodic Sentence
• Page 742-Middle Section
• Uses a semicolon so that the sentence runs on and builds to the conclusion
• After reading this you will be so exhausted you will say the last sentence with the exhaustion King feels
-Rhetorical Question
• “One may ask, ‘How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?’ The answer is found in that fact that there are two types of laws”(742)
• Anticipates counter arguments and silences it before it can be legitimized
• Remember, people hear what they want to hear, and if king does not address this, many would consider that a legitimate invalidation of his whole argument, not just this single point; they would call him a hypocrite and be done with him