Rhetorical Devices & Appeals

Martin Luther King, Jr. used the phrase “Five score years ago...” in his “I Have a Dream”

speech. This is a reference to President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, which originally began with “Four score and seven years ago...”

• Allusion

• Metaphor

• Simile

• Alliteration

You were as brave as a lion.

• Allusion

• Metaphor

• Simile

• Alliteration

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream

today. –Martin Luther King Jr.

• Euphemism

• Anaphora Repetition

• Hyperbole

• Alliteration

Jumbo shrimp

• Euphemism

• Metaphor

• Oxymoron

• Alliteration

What a wonderful world.

• Allusion

• Metaphor

• Simile

• Alliteration

How could I be so stupid?

• Rhetorical question

• Metaphor

• Euphemism

• Alliteration

Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman?

Look at me! Look at my arm! I could have sloughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman?

I could work as much and eat as much as a man—when I could get it—and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman?

-Sojourner Truth's 1851 speech "Ain't I a Woman?"

• Rhetorical question

• Metaphor

• Epistrophe Repetition

• Euphemism

Powerful you have become. The dark side I

sense in you.

• Anastrophe

• Metaphor

• Juxtaposition

• Alliteration

Our good friend Michael passed away last week.

• Allusion

• Metaphor

• Simile

• Euphemism

Alone together

• Allusion

• Oxymoron

• Simile

• Euphemism