The World House Analysis

"The World House"

In Martin Luther King Jr.'s "The World House," King emphasizes out need to preserve the "other".

King uses antithesis when he says, "The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually." Martin Luther King Jr. believes that since we are on top, and have basically all that we want, we overlook the big picture. All Americans are doing today is trying to get more, if we all put forth the effort that we use to get what we want, we can get rid of poverty. Most Americans spend thousands of dollars each year on things that are unnecessary. If we all donated that money to an impoverished country, there would be no poverty anywhere in the world today. If America teamed up with the richest empires of the world, poverty would be a thing of the past.

"Whatever affects one directly affects us all indirectly," King uses ellipsis here. Whether we realize it or not, we are all interrelated. Everything we use each day is most likely foreign made, so by buying that product, or just using it, we are "beholden to more than half of the world." By buying, or not buying a product we may affected someones life. By not buying a product we may have cost someone their job because they are not needed to produce the product because it is not selling well. Every cause has an affect. King shows us that in his passage. He says "We are inevitably our brother's keeper because we are our brother's brother." Since we are interrelated we must look out for one another just like brothers look out for brothers in a family.

In order to preserve the "other", we must all band together. We must not take material things for granted, and overlook the big picture. We must watch our actions because we never know how they will affect someone else.