Sunday 15 June 2008

What are examples of repetition and parallelism in this speech?

Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have
A Dream" speech utilizes numerous persuasive rhetorical techniques, among themand
repetition. One good example of both is towards the end of the speech, beginning with "And
so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire." The section which
follows sees King employing several rhetorical devices to convey his point: he uses a form of
parallelism called(using the same initial set of words in several phrases consecutively), and
meanwhile the use of enumeratio (listing, one by one, the various states and parts of the
country in which freedom should ring) helps convey the span of what must be changed. King then
uses repetition to further reinforce the appeal of this section: "and when we allow freedom
to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every
city."

The power of the final two lines of the speech relies heavily
upon repetition, as well as another technique known as the "power of three," which
orators often use to great effect: "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are
free at last."

Of course, King also uses parallelism and repetition
throughout the section which gives the speech its name, as King repeats the refrain, "I
have a dream" in between other examples of parallelism (anaphora) in which the phrase
"I have a dream" precedes an example of that dream. The repetition of the refrain, in
conjunction with this parallelism, serves to intensify this section to a .

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