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Question 1

Your Response

The speech, “I Have a Dream” is considered one of the most iconic and well-known
speeches of all time. Having a co-writer by Marin Luther King’s side shows how more than
one person experienced the emotions that were put into the speech. It also provided
Clarence Jones and Stuart Connelly be able to see the thought process behind the
execution of the world-renowned speech. In the prologue, Behind the Dream, Clarence
Jones uses rhetorical choices such as descriptive visual imagery, anecdotes, and
appealing to pathos to achieve his purpose of showing the audience the “behind the
scenes” of the speech.

At the beginning of the passage, it starts off with using visual imagery to illustrate the
emotions that were felt at The March on Washington. For instance, the prologue quotes, “A
quarter of a million people,...had spent their lives treated as something less ...their hearts
beating as one. Hope on the line. When hope was an increasingly scarce resource” (Jones)
appeals to the audience’s emotion and feelings. When reading this, it feels as if you are
there and experiencing the emotions that the crowd is as well. This is likely because he is
trying to recreate the feelings for someone who hasn’t had that experience and wants to
accentuate the importance of this event. Further, into the passage, Jones also quotes a
common metaphor that the event was compared to. The metaphor of “The March on
Washington has been compared to a tsunami, a shockwave, a wall, a living monument, a
human mosaic, an outright miracle” (Jones) has a great impact on the audience as well.
With appealing to pathos, it gives the audience another chance to have a recreation of the
event in their minds and heart. Furthermore, the use of vivid imagery and appealing to
pathos helps paint a picture of this event into the audience’s mind.

In the middle and ending of the passage, Jones also appeals to pathos and uses anecdotes
to further convey his purpose. As Jones quotes, “Still, I can say to those who know the
event only as a steely black-and-white television image,...the blue sky, the vibrant green life,
the golden sun everywhere—are not part of our national memory” it gives an insight of the
unknown. A lot of people go without knowing these little parts of history and Jones
provides them to evoke a sensitive emotion throughout the readers. This also is proven at
the very end of the prologue where he states, “The experiences cannot die with me; the full
truth is simply too important to history” which re-states his purpose. The purpose of
creating a memorable text where the readers can live through the text anytime, without
even experiencing the actual event. All in all, these rhetorical choices have a tremendous
impact on the audience’s emotions.

In conclusion, the use of these rhetorical appeals, visual imagery, anecdotes, and pathos
appeal, conveys the overall purpose of being able to recreate the emotions of the event and
to show the audience what it was like to be behind the scenes of the iconic speech.