Martin King and Henry Thoreau Essay

M devicein magnate and Henry Thoreau twain write persuasive expositions that oppose majority ideals and justify their own causes. While this similarity is clear, the two essays, letter from Birmingham Jail by world power and Civil Disobedience by Thoreau, do have their fair eachot of differences. Primarily in the causes themselves, as King persuades white, southern clergy men that segregation is an evil, unjust law that should be defeated through the agitation of direct protesting, and Thoreau, writing to a much broad, non addressed audience, and focusing more on the government itself, contends that at its present state, with the war with Mexico and the institution of slavery, that one should do as he does and refuse to pay government taxes that support such evil practices or traditions.While both Thoreau and King prevail in establishing a firm impression for what they strongly believe in, they each succeed in their persuasive efforts through different means. Chiefly, in the wa y that King draws emotional appeal with the usage of a burning passion and devotion, and Thoreau, while still making it evident that he is devoted in what he believes in, draws more emotional appeal through beingness more distressed and concerned than naively optimistic and optimistic. However, similarities remain to be as numerous as differences as both Thoreau and King bring credibility or ethical appeal to their assays essentially with allusions to Christ and the Bible.First, Kings emotional appeal is what above all contrasts his essay with Thoreaus. As virtually everything else the theme of disobeying unjust laws, their admiration for the minoritys viewpoint, and even, coincidently, where they wrote their essays prison, is all the same. King harbors two references to conversations shared with his children. at once with his little girl who wants to go to the public amusement park and is quickly developing tears in her eyes as her father has to sadly explain the veracity that black children arent allowed in Funtown. Promptly once again, King refers to being forced to somehow toy with an acceptable answer to his five year old sons suspense why do white people treat colored people so mean?. King does not stop in that location with his ability to throw his readers into the harsh emotional realities that he had to face.While answering the same question of why we cant wait in regards to protesting, King refers to the tragic sadness of how his wife and become are almostnever granted with the respectable title of Mrs and how his own name has virtually been modify from Martin Luther King to Nigger Boy John in the heartland of discrimination in the South. The rhetorical use of dilate is Kings second element that he takes advantage of to draw such tremendous, but infallible emotional appeal.With his despairing response to the clergy mens appraisal of the policemens ability to maintain tranquillity and order when he asserts with heavy(p) detail that maybe they wouldnt be so warmly demonstrative of(predicate) if they would have been in the streets to witness the police slapping inkiness men and boys with sticks and pushing and cursing old Negro women and girls in such a cold-hearted and cruel fashion. Furthermore, Kings account of what the South would be standardized if blacks sided more with the Black Nationalists than himself brings emotion to all that contemplate his perception of streets flowing with blood during the central conviction of the otherwise inevitable racial nightmare.Thoreau, on the other hand, never consents to revealing such frightful nightmares and makes provided one brief reference to his children. Instead, Thoreau draws emotional appeal through many an(prenominal) different techniques in the art of persuasive writing. Most predominantly, with despaired and concerning rhetorical questions such as when he asks about established governments viewpoint on long men, why does it always crucify Christ and ex communicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce majuscule and Franklin rebels?. And again when he provokes the question of how men assert their grievances when he asks How can a man be satisfied to entertain and opinion merely and enjoy it?.As stated above, Thoreau and Kings great persuasive similarity is in the way they give their essays ethical appeal. They both repetitiously make use to references of the Bible. King first asserts that he is in Birmingham for the same reason that the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the Gospel of Jesus. Once again, in comparing his civil disobedience to that of Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego when they refused to obey the worship laws of Nebucadnesser. Finally King affirms to not being offended by the criticism of being called an extremist by the thought of how many great extremists there where in the past, such as Abe Lincoln, MartinLuther, and Jesus Christ.Thoreau in the very same manner and with many of the same figures, co ntinues with his own set of biblical allusions. He subscribes to the verse of Christ and the Herodians when they ask him about his stead on taxes and Christ replies to give Caesar what is Caesars, and to give God what is Gods. And then, more broadly, Thoreau poses the question of why by and by eighteen hundred years of being written, no legislator in America or anywhere else has taken advantage of the science of legislation revealed in the New Testament.In conclusion, both Thoreau and King succeed in establishing their points on the benefits of civil disobedience. I feel that King does succeed farther with his inclusion of more impassioned emotion and easier to understand, heartfelt metaphors. Though it is debatable that the scientific and matter of fact tone Thoreau uses ultimately make his case more credible by establishing his work as not only a great personal exposition, but also a considerable scientific exposition that could be considered among the ranks of Thomas Paines C ommon Sense or even Machiavellis The Prince.