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Martin Luther King, Jr. Speech Analysis

The speech given by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on 28 August 1963 entitled “I Have a

Dream” is without a doubt one of the most famous and significant pieces of American oratory of

the twentieth century. However, while its overall effectiveness as a speech is abundantly obvious

to anyone who comes across it, it can nevertheless remain extremely difficult to articulate just

why King’s speech is so effective. One means of providing this articulation, and developing a

critical understanding of King’s speech as a result, is to apply the rhetorical theory developed by

Kenneth Burke of the Dramatic Pentad. Such application reveals that although King is aware of

the logistical difficulties ahead of his movement, his primary goal in this speech is nevertheless

to inspire his audience with a deep desire to pursue an activist lifestyle, a vital first step to the

development of a successful, long-term social justice movement.

As the name implies, Burke’s Pentad is composed of five distinct rhetorical units, each of

which identify a key analytic component at play in any given rhetorical situation. The first of

these units is the ‘act,’ which encompasses the material action being undertaken in the situation.

The second of these units is the ’scene,’ which identifies the location at which the rhetorical

situation is taking place. Next, Burke introduces the ‘agent’ as the third unit of the Dramatistic

Pentad, which indicates the individuals in question who are participating in the rhetorical

situation at hand. The fourth unit of the Dramatistic Pentad is ‘agency,’ which discusses the

means by which the given rhetorical situation is able to take place. Somewhat related to agency,

the fifth and final unit of the Dramatistic Pentad is ‘purpose,’ which points towards the internal

motivation for the agents in a rhetorical situation to act in the way that they do.

When it comes to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech, all five elements of the

Dramatistic Pentad can be readily observed, although some elements may be more apparent than
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other elements. The text of his speech is absolutely rife with rhetorical invocations of the ‘act’

component of the Dramatistic Pentad. King’s speech as a whole involves a considerable deal of

action verbs, emphasizing change and momentum. By using phrases such as “we’ve come to our

nation’s capital to cash a check” and the imperative “Let freedom ring,” King emphasizes the

fact that the speech which he is giving constitutes an action in the context of the Civil Rights

Movement, and that it is actively participating in a moment of significant social change.

The notion of scene is not as immediately apparent in the context of King’s speech as is

act, but it is nevertheless prevalent as well. In particular, King mentions not just the scene at

which the speech is taking place, but numerous other locations spread throughout the whole of

the United States as a whole and in the Southern United States in particular, indicating his belief

that the contents of his speech apply not just to the surrounding area of Washington, D.C. nor to

a few select area of the country but to the whole of the United States in all of its sprawling

entirety.

The Dramatistic aspect of the agent likewise plays an important role in King’s speech.

Predominately, this role seems to be filled by the African-American activist, although there

seems to be room in the logic of the speech for African-American allies to occupy the role of the

agent to a limited degree as well. The importance of the agent becomes especially clear in the

context of King’s speech towards the end, when the repeated use parallel imperatives emphasizes

that the goal of “letting freedom ring” is the natural end of the action of all members of King’s

audience.

However, when it comes to the aspect of agency, King’s speech does not seem to offer

much in way of how he expects the goal he lays out in the speech to be achieved. What King

wishes his listeners to do as a result of having heard his speech is unmistakably clear; how King
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wishes his listeners to achieve the ends of perfect racial equality is never addressed beyond the

occasional exhortation to keep up the fight for equality against the seemingly overpowering

forces of injustice.

The fifth and final element of the Dramatistic Pentad is also present in King’s speech as

well. King does not often bring up in a direct manner the purpose of his speech, but the

effectiveness of much of the speech derives from the fact that both King and his audience already

share an expectation about the speech and what King hopes his listeners to get out of the speech,

namely a continued and redoubled effort to fight for racial freedom and equality. Nevertheless,

King concludes his speech with a direct invocation of the purpose aspect of the Dramatistic

Pentad, arguing that the end goal of his speech in particular and the struggle for racial equality in

general is so that “all of God’s children . . . will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the

old Negro spiritual: ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Although the purpose aspect of the Pentad is not the most prominent aspect in the speech when

considered from the perspective of the number of words devoted to the aspect alone, it

nevertheless becomes one of the most prominent aspects of the entire Pentad when the strength

of the rhetoric presentation of the purpose aspect, coupled with its privileged position as the final

point in King’s address, underscores the relative importance of the purpose with respect to the

other aspects of the Pentad.

One practical application of Burke’s Pentad is that consideration of the relative frequency

of the different aspects, or the ratios between the various aspects, can often reveal a considerable

amount about the speaker’s underlying intentions. In analyzing King’s speech, it can be seen that

even though all five aspects of the Pentad are present in one form or another, they nevertheless

are present to different degrees. By far, the most prominent aspect of the Pentad that can be seen
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in King’s speech corresponds to action. The vast majority of the sentences which comprise

King’s speech are concerned with either descriptions of actions, or exhortations to undertake

these actions. The second most prominent is the agent aspect, with King repeatedly emphasizing

the importance of those individuals dedicated to risking personal security and liberty in the name

of racial freedom. These two aspects are in turn followed by the aspect of purpose, which

identifies the goal of the actions being undertaken by the individuals identified in his speech.

King does not spend much time in his speech developing the scene, although a handful of

mentions indicate that his scene is the whole of America in general, and a handful of Southern

states in particular. Finally, agency is the least developed aspect in King’s speech, as his interest

lies much more in exhorting and convincing people to pursue a social-activist course of events

than it is in detailing how such a pursuit should be undertaken.

Because King puts such a high emphasis on action and agents, and such comparatively

low emphasis on agency and scene, one can safely conclude that King’s purpose in the speech is

exhortative and idealistic. Whereas information-oriented speeches tend to focus on questions of

scene and agency, King’s interest in action and agent indicates an interest not necessarily in

accomplishing a particular goal but in creating a mass desire in the hearts of a public in pursue

that goal in the first place. Left to its own devices, King’s speech is far too impractical to be

sufficient to follow through on a revolution in social activism, but if coupled with other

rhetorical moves emphasizing scene and agency, King’s speech is more than enough to inspire

generations of activists to dedicate themselves to the pursuit of racial justice and equality.