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Pathos
Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Setting
Explanation and Analysis:
The setting of this speech is complex. In a literal sense, King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech on August 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, with the audience stretching out around the Reflecting Pool toward the Washington Monument, within the National Mall, in Washington, D.C. The speech was a part of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a demonstration attended by some 250,000 Americans from all over the country. (King would describe in his speech how important it was that attendees of the speech were from all over the country and that they could bring his vision back home with them.)
The March on Washington was organized by a coalition of leaders of religious, labor-rights, and civil-rights groups. A primary focus of the demonstration—among other goals like a federal $2 per hour minimum wage—was racial justice. Stated objectives of the protest included laws against racial discrimination in hiring, ending school segregation, and better enforcement of the 14th Amendment, which gave Black people the right to vote. An estimated three-quarters of attendees were Black.
All morning, protesters marched through the streets of D.C. to the Washington Monument and finally to the Lincoln Memorial. Then, 12 speakers gave remarks to the sprawling crowd. These speakers included the late John Lewis, then chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; Walter Reuther, the powerful leader of the United Auto Workers labor union; and just before King's speech, Rabbi Joachim Prinz of the American Jewish Congress, survivor of the Holocaust. King, already nationally famous for his work and speeches in civil-rights movements throughout the south, was scheduled as the final speaker.
The setting of the speech, in terms of its time, was at a tense moment in American history. It was scheduled near the hundredth anniversary of the passing of the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in the Confederacy. The March occurred during a nationwide movement for rights, freedoms, and protections for Black Americans, led by Black organizers, preachers, and speakers from the south since the early fifties. The March, with King's speech at the forefront, was a major influence in the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination based on race, religion, and sex.
Within the speech itself, King also manipulates his setting to rhetorical effect. His physical place on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial allows him to connect himself to Lincoln, as two great leaders of the movement for racial justice in America. King's place in time, at the hundred-year anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, allows him to make this claim as well. But King is clear that his historical setting is more complicated than just an anniversary: "Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning." He imagines his historical setting, at the anniversary of the freedom of the slaves, in a world where Black Americans still are not free, as an imperative to continue to work toward justice.
Related Themes:
