The Gettysburg Address and I Have a Dream Speech Comparison

The Gettysburg Address and I have a Dream speech comparison

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Name: Piero Pino 2do UCLA

Analytical essay: Comparison of the ideas in Lincoln’s speech to “I have a dream”

The Gettysburg Address and “I have a dream” speech are U.S. seminal documents that have a clear idea in common: freedom. Both are considered symbols and an important part of United States’ history and its fight to become a better nation.

Both speeches also share the same purpose, to persuade. Lincoln’s speech tries to persuade the audience to share his ideas, which includes the equality that must have the United States and the freedom based on what happened in the Civil War. Martin Luther King’s speech also tries to persuade the audience but telling about the inequality and disrespect that black people suffer to convince people to support the race equality.

On the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln articulates the idea of freedom in a general way, for all the USA citizens; this idea of freedom refers to the American Civil War that occurred from 1861 to 1865. The term “freedom” is used referring to the independence and the product of the effort that USA warriors did to protect the nation. Despite freedom is used more in a general way, it is directed considerably to a part of the population, the black people because after the Civil War the slavery was abolished.

Instead, in the “I have a dream” speech the idea of freedom is articulated by Martin Luther King as a concept directed specifically to the Negros because of the hard conditions they had to deal with. Through this speech, King wants to transmit to the audience the injustice that must be suppressed and that the Constitution’s words are not being validated (referring to the phrase that states that all men are created equal) because of the racism and the segregation in the United States.

Also, along both speeches, the authors used some rhetorical devices to achieve their purpose. Some of the rhetorical devices that stand out from Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King are the anaphora and the repetition. These devices do not only make the speech sounds good but it also gives an extra emphasis that clearly helps the author to convince the audience, and two other characteristics: sonority and rhythm, which catches easily other’s attention. It can be demonstrated in the next examples:

* “(…) that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. “ (Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863)

* “We can never be satisfied as long as the