Approaches to English grammar

¶ … English Grammar: "Letter from Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a very educated man who's passions shine through his prose. Analyzing his words through a grammatical standpoint not only allows us to gain insight on his genius, but also how the intricate complications of the English grammar works in eloquent every day speech. This analysis from a chunk of Dr. King Jr. will explore both the grammatical syntax used in the text, as well as the themes and tones of nonviolent resistance within the context of each sentence. In the progression of the passage, King Jr. moves from an active to passive voice based on his propelling his vision and descriptions of non-violent aggression, which is in itself passive yet still active. His relations with the established norm represent a passive voice, while his plans of action in response to that established norm takes on a past tense active voice. He then solidifies his position of presenting a strong argument through his use of an opposing view to continue to solidify his ethos. Along with conventional grammatical structures, King Jr. constantly uses both definite active and passive language to prove that action is necessary, but that it must not be threatening and essentially non-violent.

Letter from Birmingham Jail," is Martin Luther King Jr.'s call to his Southern community for the practice of non-violent resistance against the racial injustice faced by African-Americans in the South at the time. He was arrested for his participation in a protest, and his in time in a cell wrote this letter to his fellow clergymen. Published in 1963, this letter was a direct rebuttal to a previous statement made my white Alabama clergymen which focused their desire to keep racial battles in the courts and out of the streets. This passage describes the reasoning for his voluntary actions which lead to his imprisonment. He justifies his actions as necessary in order to pull the South out of its long standing tradition of racial injustice. In his eloquent words, King Jr. presents his case that he could not sit by and let racial intolerance ruin the lives of thousands of Americans around him. He calls out to his fellow peers to join him in his action to gain recognition for their struggle in order to promote change. This struggle, however, would embody the ideals of such great men as Mahatma Gandhi and Henry David Thoreau, who preached a method of non-violent resistance. The text to be analyzed in this paper is a direct call to his peers to commence in their own non-violent struggle to end racism.

For purposes of style and background context, this analysis will begin at the very end of one paragraph. The first sentence of this section begins with an adverb dependent clause which modifies the later verb, "As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise," (King, 1963). The verb is in the active past tense, providing a charge to the sentence to emphasize the strength of the statement. He connects with his audience using the subjective personal pronoun "we." This shows the desperation and need for change within the African-American South based on years of pain through racial tensions.

The proceeding sentence reminds the writer more of poetry than prose. Within the most concise example in this analysis, Martin Luther King Jr. relays the pain of years of attempting change only to see such progress fail miserably using traditional methodologies, "A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained, " (King, 1963). Three dependent clauses make up the first half of the sentence which is later divided by a semicolon. The subject is introduced in the first group, which is followed by an adverb phrase which modifies the later verb of "returned." The semicolon separates the final and very brief independent clause. This places the most strength on the clause "the others remained."

The first full paragraph of the passage chosen begins with a nostalgic lamentations using strong personal pathos to establish a connection with his audience. He includes himself within his audience in order to gain credibility. King Jr. begins his sentence with the subordinate conjunction "as" to begin the first dependent clause in the sentence, "As in so many past experiences," (King, 1963). He is using a form of passive voice with the method of putting a dependent clause before the subject and the verb, (Lewis, 1986). This dependent clause is followed by the independent clause which contains both the subject and the verb, "our hopes had been blasted," (King, 1963). The subject of the sentence is within this independent clause -- our. It is followed by the noun "hopes," which is the object of the sentence, and a past perfect form of to be in front of the past verb "blasted." This takes the strength off of the word "blasted" in an attempt to avoid the image of violence within the sentence, which is a common use of the passive voice structure, (Lewis, 1986). These two clauses are then followed by another dependent clause beginning with the coordinative conjunction and followed by a preposition phrase, "and the shadow of the deep disappointment settled upon us," (King, 1963). The verb "settled" is still in the past tense to agree with the past perfect tense introduced earlier in the sentence.

The following sentence continues this development of a strong personal pathos, which is essentially repeated throughout the text. This sentence begins his justification of his own actions which later led him into the trouble he was in. It is a sentence made up of two combined independent clauses connected with the use of a comma. The first independent clause, " We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action," (King 1963), continues with a subjective personal pronoun followed by another passive past tense verb -- had. This clause offers a transition from no alternative to using direct action, connected by the transition word "except" followed by the infinitive form of prepare, then finally a prepositional phrase. The next independent clause after the comma begins with a subordinate conjunction, "where by." It then continues with a modal verb, "whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community," (King, 1963). This turns the real object of "our bodies" into a more abstract symbol of their cause to end racial prejudice and segregation. It also personifies the concept of "the conscience of the local and the national community."

King further develops his personal perspective on the pureness of non-violent resistance. He also develops the idea that he and his follower are completely knowledgeable of the consequences which they will be forced to endure based on their choice of action rather than passiveness, "Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self-purification," (King, 1963). Once again he uses passive voice with the sentence starting as a dependent clause. This dependent clause is a form of adverb clause, which begins with the adverb mindful, (Lewis, 1986). The object of the adverb is the prepositional phrase "of the difficulties involved" using the preposition of, (Christ, 1961). The following independent clause is more active, "we decided to undertake a process of self-purification," (King, 1963). It is more active based on the verb being a stronger verb that what was previously used, (Strunk & White, 1999).

The next sentence is where the action begins to progress within his description of the events. He begins with a description of the past and some rhetorical questions he had initially asked himself and his followers, "We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: 'Are you able to accept blows without retaliation?' 'are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?'" (King, 1963). The verb of the subject is in an active voice, showing his direct moves towards actions despite its consequences. Then a colon begin the rhetorical questions "to introduce a list of particulars," (Strunk & White, 1999) which are the rhetorical questions quoted directly within the text. Both quoted rhetorical questions are introduced by a dummy verb followed by the subjective personal pronoun you, "are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?" These two rhetorical questions are both independent clause; however, they are not separated by commas in their place after the colon.

After initially opening dialogue regarding his intended action, the next sentence nails down the idea of his plan. This sentence represents his blueprints and justification of delaying his initial plan of action until a later date, "We decided to schedule our direct-action program for the Easter season, realizing that except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year," (King, 1963). This sentence is broken down into two independent clauses separated by a dependent clause in the middle. The noun Easter is the object of the later independent clause's subject and verb. The first independent clause begins in a strong active voice, with a strong decisive verb, (Graff, 2006).

This represents his shift from true passiveness to a form of non-violent action. Then, the dependent clause "realizing that except for Christmas," begins with a gerund. The verb to realize is transformed into a noun with the adding of a "-ing." This is aimed at showing the general modality of the speaker. The speaker and all involved had a previous knowledge of the realization involved in the process. Then King Jr. refers back to the object Easter with the subject and verb of "this is." This is a form of a relative clause which is therefore a form of adjective clause, (Lewis, 1986).

The next sentence continues the modality of the gerund verb. This sentence is a dependent attached to an independent clause first beginning with a gerund, "Knowing that a strong economic withdrawal program would be the by-product of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed change," (King, 1963). After the initial gerund, the clause continues with a modal verb of "would be" showing the direct effect of the economic withdrawal as a product of the subjects initial action. This clause also represents the function of an adverb dependent clause which modifies the independent clause which follows, (Lewis, 1986). The independent clause is then introduced after a comma, (Strunk & White, 1999). This clause once again begins with a transition towards active would with the use of a strong past verb -- felt. The "this" refers to the earlier object of Easter which was seen in the previous sentence. The sentence then closes with the stress on "needed change" showing a strong necessity for a different way of life in the South. This sentence is the conclusion of the first paragraph within the selected text.

The next paragraph begins once again with a return to passive voice. It reverts back towards the use of weak verbs in the context of a subject whom King is attempting to disrupt, and he must remain passive as to not promote a threatening tone which would compromise his non-violent message, "The it occurred to us that Birmingham's mayoralty election was coming up in March, and we speedily decided to postpone the action until after election day," (King, 1963). This passive voice also attests to his unwillingness to create too much chaos with his demonstrations. Rather than being labeled as troublemakers before an election, King Jr. And his followers decided to take a nobler route and wait until the energy calmed down after the election. The sentence itself is a combination of a passive voice independent clause followed by a comma which separates the next dependent clause. This second clause begins with the coordinate conjunction and followed by an adverb clause beginning with the adverb "speedily" which modifies the actual verb decided, (Lewis, 1986).

This dependent clause itself is separated by the subordinate conjunction "until."

The next sentence is a complicated series of various clauses meant at informing the reader further of the purpose of delaying the said planned action until after the heated election. The sentence itself begins with an adverb clause, "When we discovered that the Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene 'Bill' Connor, had piled up enough votes to be in the run-off," (King, 1963). The adverb clause is interrupted by an adjective clause which modifies the noun of "Bill" Connor's title name. The clause is continued with a passive verb in the form of past perfect, "had piled." The clause is then completed with a prepositional phrase, "to be in the run-off." The following independent clause introduced by the use of a comma represents the action set forth based on the previously described event, "we decided again to postpone action until the day after the run-off so that the demonstrations could not be used to cloud the issues," (King, 1963). This independent clause starts off with strong active voice with "we decided." The initial chunk of the sentence is joined with the later half with the use of the "so that" which then introduces the noun "the demonstrations" modified by the modal verb "could not be used to cloud the issues."

The next sentence begins with a short dependent clause. This dependent clause is then followed by an independent after a coma, "Like so many others, we waited to see Mr. Connor defeated," (King, 1963). This represents an adjective clause which is later followed by another dependent clause. The next portion of the sentence is a dependent clause opened with a coordinate conjunction, "And to this end, we endured postponement after postponement," (King, 1963). This represents a noun clause which modifies the previously used verb of "defeated." This last clause also represents a stylistic parallelism which is seen in the repetition of "postponement." The verb of this clause also represents a more active and descriptive still, with the past tense of "to endure."

The next sentence begins with the idea that their wait was now over. This sentence begins with a gerund where the verb ending with "-ing" is used as a noun, acting as the direct subject of the verb, "Having aided in this community need," (King, 1963). This forms the adjective clause which modifies the later noun in the independent clause, "we felt that our direct-action program could be delayed no longer," (king, 1963). The last portion of the sentence concludes with a modal verb with "could be delayed no longer." This is the concluding sentence of the second paragraph selected for intense grammatical analysis. This paragraph was relatively short compared to the previous one chosen for this present purpose. It is building a sense of suspense that will culminate in the further description of the "direct-action" which follows in the following paragraph.

This paragraph opens with a serious of open ended questions directed to engage the reader with the material. Since Martin Luther King Jr. is already familiar with his intended audience, he is allowed to use the personal subjective pronoun "you" in the formation of his personal style of ethos; "You may ask: 'Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?'" (King, 1963). He directly involves his audience in attempt to have them more intimately related to the subject at hand. His voice is separated from the questions through the use of a colon. Each question in itself is an independent clause representing a series of dummy verbs, (Lewis, 1986). This series of questions also sets up his direct response to his audience which is seen later in the nest sentence. It is King Jr. bringing in the voice of a naysayer in order to bring forth another element of his justification to make a stronger argument, (Graff, 2006). This element is an important part of any strong argument, for it shows the reader that the speaker has a well rounded perspective of the situation in which he or she is creating an argument. In this passage, King Jr. presents his naysayer in the form of questions the actual readers might pose in an opposing view of his argument.

The following sentence represents his response to such commonly held questions his audience may be potential pondering after reading this text. At first, Martin Luther King Jr. agrees with his audience, "You are quite right in calling for negotiation," (King, 1963). He addresses his audience directly and shows his understanding for such questions posed in the previous sentence. Yet, the strength is once again taken out of the statement with the use of an auxiliary verb, or the right form of to be attached to a verb in an "-ing" ending, (Lewis, 1986).

With this sentence is continuing his initial task at making his own point stronger through acknowledgement of other aspects of the situation as a whole.

The next sentence continues with this agreement to the audience. He acknowledges why his audience would react in the way he presented, "Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action," (King, 1963). The sentence itself begins with a subordinate conjunction which introduces the independent clause. This clause begins with "this" to refer back to the object of the noun "negotiation," which is stated in the previous sentence. The verb here is once again passive, being a form of "to be." Here, King Jr. begins to unravel what he believes to be the definition of direct action in its relation to non-violence.

This is where Martin Luther King Jr. once again returns to a more direct, active way of speaking to his audience to truly drive his point home. He uses a sentence structure which places the subject and verb close in context, and uses a present tense of the strong verbs which he chooses, "Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue," (King, 1963). Here is how he justifies his actions as a way to shock the Southern community into opening up negotiations which would have previously been possible. He also uses parallelism in the repetition of such, "such a crisis [...] such a tension," in order to show the craft of his argument and make it sound more personable, effectively building his ethos more and more. King Jr. closes the sentence with an interrogative pronoun introducing another verb in a past perfect tense.

The next sentence continues on Martin Luther King Jr.'s definition of true non-violent direct action.

He describes it as a growing problem which must be stopped, "It seeks to dramatize the issues that it can no longer be ignored," (King, 1963). The sentence is much more active itself, lending to his call for action; the verb "seeks" continues the power of direct present tense. This delivers a much more powerful message to the mind of the reader. The sentence ends with an adjective clause using the relative pronoun "that." These last few sentences show the direct change from a less active voice to a much stronger presence.

Martin Luther King Jr. continues this active present tense in the proceeding sentence as well. He describes his connection to the idea of non-violent struggle, "My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking," (King, 1963). He places himself directly involved in the entire situation which had sparked his letter in the first place. King Jr. uses a gerund in the form of a subject with his use of "my citing."

This is then continued with a prepositional phrase. In another, and more unique form of parallelism, King Jr. ends with a gerund of a different form, with his use of "shocking."

The next sentence begins with a transition and leads to an admission. Martin Luther King Jr. begins with one of the most common transitional words, "But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word 'tension,'" (King, 1963). The transition states that although King Jr. wants to take a route of non-violent action, this does not mean that he is afraid of action all together. After such a transition he leads into a confession via the presence of a the modal verb "must confess." This then leads the sentence into a noun clause beginning with the word "that." This clause ends with King Jr.'s use of quotes around the word "tension." Grammatically this means that the words inside the quotations are not his own, thus the need to quote them. Yet, it seems that thematically he is quoting to give the word a more powerful and abstract image of what tension is in the real world. He is not afraid to go against what has stopped so many in the past.

The proceeding sentence returns to a more complicated and less direct structure. It looses the strong present tense and re-introduces the comma to separate the independent clause and dependent clauses from each other. The first portion is made up of an independent clause, "I have earnestly opposed violent tension," (King, 1963). The verb in this clause comes in the present perfect tense, meaning that he has both in the past and the future been against violence. This is then followed by two dependent clauses starting with a transition, "but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth," (King, 1963). The first clause ends with the known "tension," while the second is an adverb clause beginning with "which," (Lewis, 1986). There is a comma which acts as a connector of adjectives which modify tension. This is the last of the paragraph's direct tone.

Martin Luther King Jr. then returns to a more complicated style in the attempt to solidify his logos. The next sentence brings in classical imagery into his own struggle, showing not only his abstract capabilities, but also his connection with his own appeal to classical rationalism with the mention of Socrates, "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 real of creative analysis and objective appraisal," (King, 1963). This entire first dependent clause has the first abstract connection of the sentence. Remember the questions geared towards the audience? King Jr. was evoking a Socratic method of reasoning in order to create a logical argument. He let the audience come to its own conclusions, only to address those concerns and redirect attention towards his own statement. In this first part of the complex sentence, one can see the true craftsmanship involved in creating the prose seen in "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." This sentence is also a represents an adjective clause which modifies the actual action on non-violent resistance later in the structure. It also modifies the pronoun of "we" which pops up later in the sentence. This clause is separated from the rest of the structure with the use of a comma.