Mlk Letter to Birmingham Jail Analysis

Andrew Clark

10/22/17

Kristin King

Essay #2

Writing 202

Word count: 1201

MLK’s Art Work

        Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is truly a work of art. The dispute he made which ended racial segregation and started a mutual connection between blacks and whites is truly inspiring. King was strategically persuasive while appearing educated and wise in his role of civil disobedience. I feel as though King’s ability to connect emotionally with the readers of the letter came from his tone, literary devices, and his ethos.

        One of the most attractive features in MLK’s Letter is his tone. The reason I believe that is because he is brutally honest without showing any signs of friendship with the audience he is targeting, in shorter terms he is being uncooperative and assertive. He declares his tone in the first paragraph, where he is calm and understandable, and he promises to continue the same tone throughout the entire letter. This enables the readers to connect with his thought process by keeping the tone simple throughout the entire letter. He balances all his attacks with an appreciation of some sort. For example he calmly declares his critical outlook on the civil segregation against African American’s in Birmingham. He says, “Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case.”(King, 2) Other critical points he uses are historical facts that back his claims and thorough examples, all while keeping his tone at a calm level. King shows some appreciation to balance out his critical analysis by closing with sort of an apology for taking too much of the audiences time by writing the letter so long. He says, “Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time.”(King, 13) He even asks for the audiences and God’s forgiveness if he understated the truth by trying to get his message of the brotherhood across. In the letter he says, “If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.”(King, 13) The ability to keep his critical points and humbleness at a stable level helps aid the audience into understanding King’s calm but demanding tone.

        As King’s tone was able to draw the reader in closer to his message, I feel as if some of the literary devices in the letter also helped aiding the readers even more to get King’s points. He used a couple metaphors and similes that enable the audience to visualize what he’s speaking about, it also triggers some emotional connection, which drawls you more into the letter. The best simile he uses is, “Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.”(King, 7) He is talking about all the racial segregation against the blacks in Birmingham; the only way for them to take progressive steps forward is to acknowledge that there is a problem. I feel as this puts visualization into the reader’s mind, which brings them, closer to the letter and the point he is trying to get across. The other literary device that King uses is metaphors. One of the notable metaphors he uses is “suffered unduly from the disease of segregation.”(King, 12) You could draw visualization just from that statement alone; he is comparing racial segregation to a disease that’s how bad it was. The visualizations the simile and metaphor cause really triggers an emotion within the audience and enable you to feel what King was feeling in his message.