King’s Words Start a Fire

Recall the writing prompt for this unit:

What makes King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" powerful and effective? After
reading King's letter, answer the question by analyzing how he uses structure and
language purposefully in his text. Provide specific examples from the text to support
your analysis.

Your study of language in this assignment will begin to help you answer this
question and respond to the prompt later in the unit.

Like protest songs, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” includes
many examples of figurative language meant to persuade people to take action.

In each line, an instance of figurative language is already identified for you. Use what
you learned in the lesson to identify the type of figurative language, explain what the
figurative language means, and explain the tone and mood of the line from the letter.
Some parts of the chart are already completed for you.

The line … from “Letter from is an example of … that means… and creates a
Birmingham Jail” ____________
(Which type of tone
figurative language
such as metaphor,
simile, and a
personification, ____________
symbol, or allusion?) mood.

Example:
This movement is nourished by the is an example of that means the and creates a
contemporary frustration over the Personification movement grows Factual tone and
continued existence of racial because of the an Urgent mood.
discrimination. people’s frustration  
with racial
discrimination

1. …and see the tears welling up    

in her little eyes when she is
told that Funtown is closed to
colored children, and see the
depressing clouds of
inferiority begin to form in
her little mental sky…
2. There comes a time when the     _______________
cup of endurance runs over, tone
and men are no longer
willing to be plunged into an Urgent mood
abyss of injustice where they
experience the bleakness of
corroding despair.
3. To a degree academic   Socrates disobeyed _______________
freedom is a reality today laws that were not tone
because Socrates practiced fair, which made it
civil disobedience. so students today Thought-provoking
can think freely (and mood
possibly differently
than their teachers).
4. Like a boil that can never be      
cured as long as it is covered
up but must be opened with
all its pus-flowing ugliness to
the natural medicines of air
and light, injustice must
likewise be exposed, with all
of the tension its exposing
creates, to the light of human
conscience and the air of
national opinion before it can
be cured.
5. In those days the Church was Metaphor The church did not  
not merely a just reflect what was
thermometer that recorded happening in
the ideas and principles of society; it actually
popular opinion; it was a had the ability to
thermostat that change what was
transformed the mores of happening in
society. society.
6. Let us all hope the dark     Optimistic tone
clouds of racial prejudice will
soon pass away and the deep ____________
fog of misunderstanding will mood
be lifted from our fear-
drenched communities…
7. Let us all hope the dark
clouds of racial prejudice will
soon pass away and the deep
fog of misunderstanding will
be lifted from our fear-
drenched communities…