Dr. Martin Luther King, an extraordinary man famously known for speaking out about society's problems, once addressed a crowd of hundreds of people about the problems created by the Vietnam War. King gave the speech on April 4, 1967, intending to stop what the government wanted to carry out, and he did so using a certain approach that persuaded his audience. By applying negative connotation, cruel irony, and logical reasoning in his speech, King demonstrated to the crowd that America's involvement in the Vietnam War was unfair to all Americans, and he helped persuade everyone in that crowd to follow the rules as well. his beliefs. to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay King's views on the Vietnam War were not positive and so to describe his feelings he used a negative connotation in his opening lines. King characterized the Vietnam War as “a demonic and destructive suction tube…” and “a society's inactive political plaything…”, which illustrated his true feelings about the war (King, 1). However, the beginning of his speech says that he also described something with positive connotations. When King used the positive connotation on this different issue, he illustrated to his audience that he felt totally different about the two topics, creating opposing opinions for both cases. Once his views on the war were distributed, King presented facts to support his opinions. So, in a sense, King uses the negative connotation as the foundation of his argument, which allowed his claim and evidence to come to the forefront (King, 1). Without the negative connotation, however, King's argument would not be strong enough to convince the audience that his claims were true. Throughout the body of King's speech, King uses cruel irony to emotionally relate to his audience. During his lecture, King called it “A tragic recognition of reality…”, and referred to it as he listed all the reasons why the Vietnam War could be a huge case of cruel irony (King, 2). While it may seem like King was pointing out the wrongdoings of our government, he actually connected with the crowd by talking about the topic. King, along with cruel irony, mentioned racism, and that is how he connected and caught the attention of many in the crowd (King, 2). John Corcoran, a lawyer and former Clinton White House writer, once wrote an article about connecting with an audience. He stated that “A speaker (must) establish a connection with their audience so that they are more receptive to actually accepting and retaining your message… Do this and your audience will never forget you, or your message” ( Corcoran, 11). Just as Corcoran mentioned, King connected with his audience through the use of cruel irony, which made them more accepting of whatever he had to say. King used numerous amounts of logical reasoning to prove his points in the middle of his speech. He successfully convinces his audience that his claim is right with logical reasoning, just as one would convince the audience with supporting evidence. To support most of his arguments, he uses evidence that (most likely) the entire audience would have personally witnessed. For example, to support his claim of cruel irony, he uses the fact that the war is broadcast on national television and that anyone has the freedom to see it with their own eyes (King, 2). Another example of logical reasoning.