ipl-logo

Compare And Contrast How It Feels To Be Colored Me And The Letter From Birmingham Jail

911 Words4 Pages

In How It Feels To Be Colored Me by Zora Neal Hurston well as in The Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr both authors convey what it feels like to be face with race issues.The two essays shed light on the social issues in different ways. The essays show the struggles of life when those around the two authors do not fully grasp the concept. Both Hertz and King use tone, their audience, and point of view to get their point across with the goal of bringing a better understanding to their audience. The tone and these essays are important because they help the audience relate to the piece. King’s tone is persuasive as well as educated. King's persuasive tone helps him bring people to see what he believes is common sense. “ The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet like speed towards the goal of …show more content…

The audience affects his letter because he is now keeping in mind exactly how to get his audience where he wants them to be. Knowing That his audience are clergyman King uses biblical allusions, for example, “...and just as Apostle Paul left hus little village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to practically every hamlet and city in the Graeco- Roman world…” ( The Letter from Birmingham Jail),to help his audience understand his position. On the other hand, Hurston does not have a set audience. She uses personal experience to get the same level of understanding King gains with his readers. By not having a set audience and Hurston is able to reach more people with her essay. Her goal is that her readers do not pity her, to do this she mentions her friend in this way, “ Music! The great blobs of purple and red emotion have not touched him. He has only heard what I felt.” (How It Feels to be Colored Me). Both Hurston and King set to change the point of view on social issues by asking their audience to look further than what is in front of

Show More
Related
342 Words | 2 Pages

The most effective rhetorical appeal used in the passage was logos and pathos. King used reasoning and experiences to try to persuade the clergymen or ministers, to bring unity and pacifism. In his applauding and jaw dropping letter, he writes from jail, to the ministers about his aspect on racism and segregation. Additionally, King uses allusion to refer to unconventional events in the past, that support his work. For example, in the letter he speaks of Apollo Paul.

Read More
1117 Words | 5 Pages

King is personally more compelling, including the way he addresses his opposers and his objective and rationale that require civil disobedience. King’s reason for his fight was for the equal rights of all wronged by the unmerited laws that were in place during the time in the United States. At the end of his letter he said, “Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.” (Paragraph 39) showing his goal for the future and what he was striving for. Throughout his letter he never tries to be condescending towards the clergymen, to whom he is addressing this letter, instead laying the facts out in the letter as unprejudiced as possible, because he knows the clergymen and those against his cause will be trying to find things that are untrue.

Read More
352 Words | 2 Pages

Riddled with racial tension and a lack of equal rights, the 1950-60s exposed the truth behind segregation. In a letter written by Doctor Martin Luther King, “Letter from Birmingham Jail” King attacks the idea of racial inequality, and exposes the plights met by black families and individuals. In this letter, King uses excellent examples of imagery to show the racial discrimination being experienced. During this time of discrimination, the struggle for racial equality was prevalent, and extremely brutal. Given the circumstances of this time, discrimination turned into violence due to racial motivation.

Read More
1408 Words | 6 Pages

In “Letter from Birmingham Jail” it can easily be argued that King used many rhetorical devices such as anaphora and tone in order to further persuade his audience to take action on behalf of the Civil Rights movement. Through copious examples, the reader is presented with King’s effort to use repetition in order to drive his point as well as being presented with the changing tone of his writing which allows the reader to experience a shift in emotions and urgency throughout the

Read More
744 Words | 3 Pages

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly” (para. 4). His essay contains a lot of relatable examples that were effective in persuading people to go against racial segregation. King took his time to build his persona in the first parts of his essay, particularly in the second paragraph, stating that he is the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. This is an effective way to get the readers to believe his argument since he is also a server of the church like the eight clergymen

Read More
717 Words | 3 Pages

Essay: Cause and Effect of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” In this essay I will be talking about a letter that Martin Luther King Jr. wrote called “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” The purpose of King’s words was to try and make people understand that no matter our race, no matter our skin color, we all deserve freedom.

Read More
704 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout the text, Hurston infers that she's optimistic about being colored. “How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company”(67)? Hurston writes that she feels discriminated against but also feels how could anyone not want to be in her presence therefor She feels optimistic about the future. Hurston recalls that “Slavery is sixty years in the past” (65).

Read More
615 Words | 3 Pages

The great Rosa Parks once said “Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome.” The authors Frederick Douglass and Paul Laurence Dunbar, both wrote about the mistreatment and discrimination towards people, usually being African Americans. Frederick Douglass used diction and figurative language to help convey his message to his readers. Meanwhile, Paul Laurence Dunbar used imagery and diction to help his readers connect to his thoughts and emotions.

Read More
891 Words | 4 Pages

Anderson starkly compares his life as a freed slave, to his time working for his old master. It is through this comparison that the reader is able to understand the difference in treatment he is receiving, and helps to establish his credibility through his lived experiences. King, on the other hand, demands respect through his choice of examples and allusions. He refutes the idea that he is wrong in his actions through appealing to the moral beliefs held by both the clergymen and the American people. He alludes to the prophets of eighth century B.C, to Apostle Paul and Jesus Christ, and brings to example the social and political advancements occurring in other countries, to which America is falling behind.

Read More
866 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout the text, King utilized the values of his audience to gain sympathy and later on support. His use of diction and syntax would align his mission to God’s, and show that he was in the right and the clergymen were in the wrong. In his letter, King effectively used an extended periodic sentence that consisted of more than 300 words. The sentence has an extreme appeal to pathos, with such vivid imagery

Read More
1602 Words | 7 Pages

Martin Luther King   Who was Martin Luther King? If I were to ask you, you would probably tell me he was a great man. But why? Well, you would explain, he was a pastor, he believed in peace, but most importantly, he was a powerful leader in the African-American movement that led to equality for all. But what did King believe?

Read More
934 Words | 4 Pages

To grasp an understanding of the Southern States of America, that is something that Edward L. Ayers argues is hard to achieve :“when they speak of 'Southern culture ' they are creating a fiction, a fiction of a geographically bounded and coherent set of attributes to be set off against a mythical non-South. ”1 However, this does not mean that writers of the South can give us a greater understanding of the South. Ayers says that “As The South 's defenders claim, it is not easily understood by outsiders; as its critics claim, it is apparently not understood much better by its resident defenders. ”2

Read More
804 Words | 4 Pages

King’s dialect showed the audience civil right issues, involving many rhetorical strategies using ethos, logos, and pathos, to a racially tempered crowd whom he viewed as different, but not equal. From the very beginning of it , King brings his crowd back to the origin of America when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, that freed all slaves and gave hope to the former slaves. But immediately after Dr. King speaks out on how after 100 years Blacks still do not have the free will that is deserved. He points out the irony of America because Black Americans were still not truly free.

Read More
585 Words | 3 Pages

In both story I have found a connection between how race has a direct effect on their identity. Starting off with “How it Feels to be Colored Me” by Zora Neale hurston like when she was comparing herself to "a brown bag" filled with all kinds of random things, and by comparing other people of various races to other bags similarly filled with different stuff, Hurston is basically saying that it really doesn 't matter what color we are on the outside--we 're all filled with basically the same things (the same thoughts, feelings, experiences, etc.) and that this essential similarity that transcends race is probably how we were made to be by God ("the Great Bag stuffer "). Basically, then, Hurston is saying that even though her own experiences

Read More
688 Words | 3 Pages

King uses tone, literal and figurative language to establish structure and language in his letter. King’s use of tone in his letter was a great way to lay out the foundation of his letter and add structure. In paragraph 2 and 3, King explains in the “hard, brutal and unbelievable facts” of the actions taken toward blacks

Read More

More about Compare And Contrast How It Feels To Be Colored Me And The Letter From Birmingham Jail

Related Topics

Open Document