HIGH AND LOW

IMAGERY USED
IN LETTER FROM
BIRMINGHAM
JAIL
Victor Martin

Figurative Language
Figurative Language is used by writers to

produce images in the readers mind and to

express ideas in a fresh, vivid, and
imaginative way.

Imagery
Imagery refers to adjectives that have been

used to enhance the reader's visual on the

situation that is being presented.
High Imagery
Low Imagery

High Imagery
High imagery is usually referred to hills, the

heavens, the good, or even things above the

average mind.

Low Imagery
Low imagery usually relates to things

underneath the good. Low imagery could

include darkness, magma, or even deep
ocean depths.

High/Low Imagery
Examples
The high and low imagery in Kings Letter From Birmingham Jail

occurs in biblical images, such as mountains and valleys. Here

are some examples of this from the piece:
Paragraph 10: dark depths of prejudice . . . majestic heights of

understanding
Paragraph 14: abyss of despair
Paragraph 24: like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is
covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural
medicines of air and light . . .
Paragraph 27: the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of
human dignity
Paragraph 43: the dark mountain of disappointment
Paragraph 47: those great wells of democracy
Paragraph 50: dark clouds of racial prejudice . . . deep fog . . .
radiant stars

Example 1 Paragraph
38
Martin Luther King Jr. Says
Where were they when Governor Wallace

gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred?

Where were their voices of support when
bruised and weary Negro men and women
decided to rise from the dark dungeonsof
complacency to thebright hillsof creative
protest?

Explanation
King questions his audience about why

Governor Wallace did nothing to support the

black people when they were injured by white
police officers and others that inflicted harm
on them.

The Effect Created

King describes complacency and inaction

todark dungeons, while protesting has been

described and visualized asbright hills.
The quote takes place in different forms of
rhetorical questions, expressing an emotional
appeal to the audience in order to see how
crude the people in the South are to black
people, and how they need support and
justice for equality, but certainly not from
bruises and making them weary.

Analytical Conclusion
King want his audience to feel the need of

letting go harm and fear that pertain to the

dungeon that leads to uncritical satisfaction
for their goals, and create a better way to
achieve their actions through a peaceful and
creative way for protesting unity and
freedom for American Blacks.

Example 2 Paragraph
16
Martin Luther King Jr. Says
To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas:

An unjust law is a human law that is not

rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any
law that uplifts human personality is just.
Any law that degrades human personality is
unjust.

Explanation
King is explaining that the law is focused

more on the unfair terms of segregation,

instead of having its focal point on God and
unity for all people.
The crimes that people do should not be
focused on race, but on the type of crime they
have committed.

The Effect Created

Kings logos throughout this statements clearly

dismisses such a charge as simplistic. Taking for

granted that his audience accepts the validity of
Christian morality, he insists that one should
apply this sense of morality towards the worlds
complications.
This logical argument is an implicit use of pathos
Dr. Kings argument empowers the individual to
be diligent of injustice in the world, and to have
that be his guide, rather than relying on socially
dictated platitude, such as the law is the law.

Analytical Conclusion
Dr. Kings argument empowers the individual

to be conscientious of injustice in the world,

and to let that be his guide, rather than
relying on socially dictated truisms like the
law is the law.

Example 3 Paragraph
27
Martin Luther King Jr. Says
Now is the time to make real the promise of

democracy and transform our pending

national elegy into a creative psalm of
brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our
national policy from thequicksandof racial
injustice to the solid rockof human
dignity.

Explanation
King wants the black people to relieve

themselves from the troubling problem of

inequality and begin to set forth on making
this nation sustainable for all types of people.

The Effect Created

Using a comparison found in nature, he also

compares injustice to loose soil

likequicksand, while human dignity is
described assolid rock.
The use of logical and emotional appeal gives
Kings audience a form of depth of what to
think about achieving their goal for rejecting
racism and ask for freedom nonviolently.

Analytical Conclusion
Kings metaphors make the problem simplistic

to his people in order to give them the goal

that is needed to make equality not just a
dream, but as a solid rock that will
permanently shape the future of America
forever.
People struggling in the quicksand should
view their ideas and created a form of
democracy to show freedom and the will that
is needed to apply force for unity that will lead
them through, but in a form of nonviolence.

Example 4 Paragraph
50
Martin Luther King Jr. Says
"Let us all hope that the dark clouds of

racial prejudice will soon pass away and

the deep fog of misunderstanding will be
lifted from our fear drenched
communities, and in some not too distant
tomorrow the radiant stars of love and
brotherhood will shine over our great
nation with all their scintillating beauty.

Explanation
King is concluding to his audience that

prejudice and racism will soon end, once the

colored people have gained their rights for
equality.
The stars will brighten for a peaceful and kind
future, and let their dark past be a historical
event that will never be forgotten.

The Effect Created

Dr. King combines many different juxtapositions into

one long metaphorical statement.

He compares prejudice to lowdark cloudsand adeep
fog that covers the land, while love and brotherhood
are described as highradiant starsthatshine above
the atmospherewithscintillating beauty.
He also creates an ethical and emotional appeal to
the audience in order to give action and passion for
this type of situation. As a writer, he gives hope for a
better future towards his audience, and uses visual
diction to make them understand what he wants, and
what they probably want, too.

Analytical Conclusion
Kings hope for the future resembles radiant

stars of tomorrow that come in contact with

the past of sorrow and vulnerability in order to
create a more quintessential lifestyle that is
suitable to all types of people, making
America greater in unity and diversity, but
lesser in chauvinism and bigotry.

Example 5 Paragraph
10
Martin Luther King Jr. Says
Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to

create a tension in the mind so that individuals

could rise from the bondage of myths and
half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative
analysis and objective appraisal, we must see
the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the
kind of tension in society that will help men rise
from the dark depths of prejudice and
racism to the majestic heights of
understanding and brotherhood.

Explanation
He implies that proceeding without tension is

going to leave men in the dark depths of

prejudice and racism.
It is a passive, implicit warning that addresses
segregation without tension that would not
only be ineffective, but dangerous.
But in order to put a stop to this men should
all reach the zenith that leads to the
brotherhood and friendship of everyone,
without limiting themselves to just one group
of people.

The Effect Created

King describes prejudice and racism as being

dark and low while considering understanding

and brotherhood to be stately high.
He also uses an interesting metaphor by
comparing the civil rights protesters to
nonviolent gadflies.
These are types of flies that fly quickly between

different areas and annoy livestock or people.

He also refers back to other metaphors

oftensionandbondageas he sets up the

antithetical metaphor structure.

Analytical Conclusion
The statement of dark depths of prejudicemajestic

heights of understanding is a use of an emotional appeal

to pathos, because it gives his audience a relation of
similar value to his visual text.
Because racism is malevolent and inappropriate to
others, it can be contrasted with something dark and
dreary like a disregarded, low laying depth that
represents sorrow and hatred for others.
To overcome this fall, King gives reasoning that people of
all color should reach the limits of understanding their
differences between each other and create a future of
equality and diversity that leads to majestic heights.

In Conclusion. . .
Martin Luther King Jr.'s rhetorical strategy of high and low

imagery was very effective in communicating to his

audience.
In the piece, King uses these forms of imagery as a key
component in comparisons to create a more detailed and
vivid description for his audience to connect with him, but
in an informal method.
His use of this strategy shows the importance between the
things he compares, especially with the rhetorical terms of
metaphors and antithesis.
He uses the high and low imagery in contrast often to
emphasize meaning and emotionally appeal to the
audience through vivid images created by his word choice.