How It Feels To Be Colored Me By Zora Hursa Rhetorical Analysis

1040 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: How it Feels to be Colored Me response essay

Pursuit of equality When write an essay or make a speech, the way a writer use to deliver his message is especially important. A good writer or lecturer is fully aware whom he will be delivering his message to, and what kind of rhetorical strategies he will be using to convince his audience. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the rhetorical strategy of two articles, “Ain’t I a Woman” by Sojourner Truth and “ How it Feels to Be Colored Me” by Zora Hurston. Both Sojourner and Zora speaks about the inequalities that women and blacks faced at that time in America, and their goals is to make their readers--usually the vulnerable groups in society, to pursue their rights of equality and identity. However, the rhetorical strategies …show more content…

In “Ain’t I a Woman”, Sojourner uses repetition, pathos and addressing opposing viewpoint to make her argument more persuasive, while in “ How it Feels to Be Colored Me”, Hurston changes her tones of writing and use metaphor to convince her audience. In article “Ain’t I a Woman”, Sojourner …show more content…

She begins talking about her childhood experience in a Negro town, where she has no idea her difference between other white people. “During this period, white people differed from colored to me only in that they rode through town and never lived there.”(417). Then she immediately realize the difference at age of thirteen. However unlike most other black people, she didn’t talk much about how unequally she was treated or her anger towards discrimination. Instead, she said” But I am not tragically colored” and “ I do not mind at all”(417). By saying so, Zora wants her reader to know that she was not feeling the hatred toward her own self of who she was and what colored skin she had, she showed who she was and as she mentioned” I do not mind at

Show More
Related

  • Zora Neale Hrston Essay On Discrimination

    894 Words  | 2 Pages

    Though her race was a victim of brutal, harsh discrimination, Hurston lived her life as an individual first, and a person of color second. In the narrative “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston, Hurston says, “The cosmic Zora emerges. I belong to no race nor time. I am the eternal feminine with its string of beads” (Hurston 3). She feels as though an extraordinary form of herself is brought out. This form is not bound by physical traits and is the everlasting woman with the cards she is dealt. The “cosmic Zora” emerging represents the empowered, fearless Zora from Orange County, Florida. When she says that she belongs “to no race nor time”, she means that her race and background do not define who she is as an individual. “The eternal feminine” symbolizes the

    Read More

  • Zora Neale Hurston's Dust Tracks On A Road

    726 Words  | 2 Pages

    Zora Neale Hurston grew up in Eatonville, Florida also known as “Negro Town” (Hurston, 1960, p.1). Not because of the town was full of blacks, but because the town charter, mayor, and council. Her home town was not the first Negro community, but the first to be incorporated. Around Zora becoming she experienced many hangings and riots. Not only did Zora experience t...

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Ain T I A Woman

    503 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sojourner continues her speech with rhythmic and repetition, building up an energy in her voice and audience with a brief personal experience followed each time with that same rhetorical question. She draws a picture of her equality to men by expressing her strength and hard-working efforts as she “ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me.” Again, following this statement , “and ain’t I a woman?” She rhythmically continues this pattern, making a claim to her equality she feels with males and then following it with the powerful question “and ain’t I a

    Read More

  • Ta-Nehisi Coates And Zora Neale Hurston Analysis

    791 Words  | 2 Pages

    Although Hurston was a woman of color from the rural south and growing up in a racist, sexist and urban-centric society, her aim was to change the public’s perceptions of African Americans. Hurston’s purpose for her writings was not to integrate whites and blacks but instead to appreciate and celebrate race and culture diversity. Her writings focused on her passions for folk culture, wisdom, self-respect, and individuality.

    Read More

  • How It Feels To Be Colored Me By Zora Neale Hurston Analysis

    794 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the essay “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” Zora Neale Hurston describes her life growing up in Florida and her racial identity as time goes on. Unlike many, she disassociates herself with “the sobbing school of Negrohood” that requires her to incessantly lay claim to past and present injustices and “whose feelings are all hurt by it”. Although she acknowledges times when she feels her racial difference, Hurston portray herself as “tragically colored.” Essentially, with her insistence that she is unhurt by the people treat her differently, Hurston’s narrative implies she is happier moving forward than complaining. Ironically, Hurston is empowered by her race and the double standard it imposes stating, “it is thrilling [that for every action,] I shall get twice as much praise or twice as much blame.”. Moreover, with her insistence that we are all equal under “The Great Stuffer of Bags,” she accepts every double standard and hardship as good. Hurston’s narrative of self empowerment moves and entertains the reader, while still drawing attention unjust treatment Hurston

    Read More

  • Analysis Of How It Feels To Be Colored Me By Neale Hurston

    1781 Words  | 4 Pages

    In ‘How it feels to be colored me’ Neale Hurston opens up to her pride and identity as an African-American. Hurston uses a wide variety of imagery, diction using figurative language freely with metaphors. Her tone is bordering controversial using local lingo.

    Read More

  • Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, and Paule Marshall

    5114 Words  | 11 Pages

    Walker and Marshall write about an identity that they have found with African-American women of the past. They both refer to great writers such as Zora Neale Hurston or Phillis Wheatley. But more importantly, they connect themselves to their ancestors. The see that their writings can be identified with what the unknown African-American women of the past longed to say but they did not have the freedom to do so. They both admire many literary greats such as Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, and Jane Austen, but they appreciate these authors' works more than they can identify with them.

    Read More

  • How It Feels To Be Colored Me

    976 Words  | 2 Pages

    Both essays, How It Feels to Be Colored Me by Zora Neale Hurston and Of The Coming of John by W.E.B Du Bois, are two renowned essays that were written during a time of great discrimination against African Americans in the United States. Despite these two essays having different plots and a different set of characters, their experiences are quite similar in many ways. How It Feels to Be Colored Me has to do with the author’s experience as an African American in 20th century America. Zora Hurston was raised in an all black community in Florida, but then left her home at thirteen and moved into Jacksonville. At her new home, she then realized that this new city is a lot more diverse and it was at this time that she began to “feel her race.” At

    Read More

  • Contributions of Women Abolitionists

    783 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sojourner Truth, an African American woman and former slave, fights a double war within winning her rights. The fact that Truth is an African American female put an addition strain on her journey. Truth traveled thousands of miles giving speeches against slavery and for women’s rights. In 1851, Truth gave her famous speech, “Ain’t I a Woman” at the Women’s Convention. In her speech, she attacked the idea of women and blacks being inferior. Truth used her personal experiences to describe the discrimination she faced as a black, ex-slave woman. Truth’s main objective through her speech was to show how she is equal to any man. She declared,

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Angelina Grimke And Sojourner Truth

    783 Words  | 2 Pages

    Angelina Grimke and Sojourner Truth were both prominent American civil rights activists of the 19th century who focused on the abolition of slavery and women’s rights issues, respectively. While both of these women challenged the societal beliefs of the United States at the time regarding these civil rights issues, the rhetorical strategies used by each of these women to not only illustrate their respective arguments but also to raise social awareness of these issues was approached in very different fashions. Angelina Grimke promoted the use of white middle-class women’s positions in the household to try to influence the decision makers, or men, around them. On the other hand, Sojourner Truth, a former slave turned women’s rights activist,

    Read More

  • Zora Neale Hurston How It Feels To Be Colored Me Analysis

    1084 Words  | 3 Pages

    How does Zora Neale Hurston’s race affect her approach to life? America has a long history of discriminating certain groups of people, particularly people of color. African-Americans were treated as slaves and was not seen as equal. Although slavery remained a history and was ultimately legally abolished, race still plays a big role in determining superiority today. Author of How it feels to be colored me, Zora Neale Hurston, describes her journey of racial recognition outside her world that reshaped her conception of racial identity that resulted in the prideful embrace of her African American heritage.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast How It Feels To Be Colored Me By Langston Hughes

    1849 Words  | 4 Pages

    From slavery to the Harlem Renaissance, a revolutionary change in the African American community, lead by poets, musicians and artists of all style. People where expressing their feeling by writing the poem, playing on instruments and many more. According to the poem “ I, Too” by Langston Hughes and article “How it feels to be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurtson, the poem and article connects to each other. The poem is about how a African Man, who sits in the dinning café and says that, one day nobody would be able to ask him to move anywhere, and the in the article written by Zora Neale Hurtson, she describes how her life was different from others, she was not afraid of going anywhere. They both have very similar thoughts,

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Sojourner Truth And Ain T I A Woman

    1805 Words  | 4 Pages

    In Sojourner Truth’s speech “Ain’t I a Woman?” and Frederick Douglass’ “The Hypocrisy of American Slavery” use rhetorical questions for emphasis, anecdotes to connect with the audience, counterarguments to Christianity’s opposing stance and repetition to force the audience to listen. These contemporaries used similar ways to prove their causes were not only worthy but necessary for society to move forward from its oppressing history. Both of them draw from personal experience, as former slaves. Although neither of them would live to see their goals fully realized, these speeches played an immense role in changing public opinion and they continue to inspire marginalized societies.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast How It Feels To Be Colored Me

    1426 Words  | 3 Pages

    In “How it feels to be Colored Me”, Zora Hurston is trying to explore her own identity and find who she is in a world full of discrimination. She is a young black girl who is living during a time when it is tough to be black because of the way they are treated and used. In “Theme for English B”, Hughes writes about a young black man about the age of 22 who is given an assignment by his teacher to write a one page report from the self. The young man questions whether or not his paper will have the same truth behind it as a young white man’s paper. I am comparing these two works because the setting is similar. They are both in school during a time that blacks and whites were still trying to get used to being around each other in a learning atmosphere.

    Read More

  • How It Feels to Be Colored Me by Zora Neale Hurston

    715 Words  | 2 Pages

    In “How It Feels to Be Colored Me,” Hurston breaks from the tradition of her time by rejecting the idea that the African American people should be ashamed or saddened by the color of their skin. She tells other African Americans that they should embrace their color and be proud of who they are. She writes, “[A socialite]…has nothing on me. The cosmic Zora emerges,” and “I am the eternal feminine with its string of beads” (942-943). Whether she feels “colored” or not, she knows she is beautiful and of value. But Hurston writes about a time when she did not always know that she was considered colored.

    Read More

More about How It Feels To Be Colored Me By Zora Hursa Rhetorical Analysis

Open Document