The Rhetoric of Redemption

Download or read book The Rhetoric of Redemption written by David A. Bobbitt and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2007-02-16 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' speech has become an icon of American public culture, its imagery and words profoundly influencing the civil rights debate. In The Rhetoric of Redemption Bobbitt applies Kenneth Burke's theory of guilt-purification-redemption in a close, critical analysis of the speech, developing and examining the implications of Burke's redemption drama in contemporary public discourse. He studies the impact of the speech over time, arguing that, while King's speech contains an inspirational vision of national redemption, it does so by omitting the real difficulties of overcoming America's racial divisions.