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My Childhood On The Continent Of Africa

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In an essay, structure and balance are important because they allow the reader to stay focused on the material. As a result, the reader will feel involved in the topic because he or she is the writer’s targeted audience. Involving the reader in the text is an effective way to attract his or her interests. For instance, there are several elements used in a paper that can affect the reader’s emotional response. An essay that connects to the audience’s emotional response is a successful paper. For this reason, “Remembering My Childhood on the Continent of Africa” is a strong essay that relates to a reader’s response due to its visual descriptions that are clear and recognizable. Therefore, the main strengths of the essay are classification, comparison and contrast, and their impact on its audience. …show more content…

In addition, there are two types of classifications: binary and complex. A binary classification sorts things out into two groups; a complex classification sorts things into many. For example, David Sedaris compares his childhood memories to his lifelong friend Hugh’s memories: “I threw stones at stop signs. Hugh threw stones at crocodiles” (Sedaris 267). The similarities and differences of something are shown by classification and it helps the reader compare them. Furthermore, the classifications used in “Remembering My Childhood on the Continent of Africa” are consistent, complete, and they have a purpose. The goal of classification is to stimulate the reader’s emotions in order for them to feel sympathetic towards David, who is envious of Hugh’s interesting childhood. Classification is a method similar to comparison and

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Continental Comparison In the essay “Remembering My Childhood on the Continent of Africa” David Sedaris uses irony to show his disgust in his partner Hugh’s childhood experiences. He uses comparison to Hugh’s to display the differences between their upbringings. These writing techniques are used to make the point that everyone should appreciate their childhood because someone might have had a worse childhood than they have.

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Writers use strategies in personal essays to make a connection to readers. Even though readers aren’t necessarily right next to the writer, writers write their personal essays as if the reader were there. They are able to reveal their deepest thoughts within their writing, as readers can relate to it. Phillip Lopate states the importance of strategies in his anthology, “The Art of the Personal Essay.” In his anthology, Lopate mentions that the use of strategies used in personal essays are similar; however, those strategies can portray different themes that the author doesn’t state.

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to tell his audience: we should really think about the lobster’s point of view before consuming it. David Foster Wallace uses a multitude of rhetorical strategies to get his point across, including pathos and ethos. His essay is ingenious in how it gets its point across, and how it forces even the largest lobster consumers to truly contemplate how the lobster might react to its consumption. It brings up many controversial topics of animal rights that many people tend to avoid, especially people who are major carnivores. Wallace’s use of rhetorical strategies really gets the reader thinking, and thoroughly captures the argument of many vegetarians against the consumption of animals.

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Throughout time diverse regions have considered other societies to be barbaric, causing them to have the desire of “civilizing” them. Many individuals accept the rule of a higher and civilized region as they believe that their alterations will benefit them. Although, by enabling a higher power to acquire authority in another foreign nation, will diminish that regions culture and individuals will not truly possess respect, ultimately causing them to rebel against that foreign power after they comprehend their true nature. Likewise, after the Berlin Conference, which set certain rules for the partition of Africa, numerous European powers desired in colonizing Africa and obtaining control during the early 1800s, which was known as the Scramble

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In Chapter 1 and 2 of “Creating Black Americans,” author Nell Irvin Painter addresses an imperative issue in which African history and the lives of Africans are often dismissed (2) and continue to be perceived in a negative light (1). This book gives the author the chance to revive the history of Africa, being this a sacred place to provide readers with a “history of their own.” (Painter 4) The issue that Africans were depicted in a negative light impacted various artworks and educational settings in the 19th and early 20th century. For instance, in educational settings, many students were exposed to the Eurocentric Western learning which its depiction of Africa were not only biased, but racist as well.

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Skin Color Isn't A Tragedy In "How It Feels to Be Colored Me," from The Norton Reader, Zora Neale Hurston states her experiences with racism as she grew up from the stages of childhood to adulthood. Throughout the essay, Hurston explains how she sees the suffering of black people and how she has accepted her skin color. The author's key point is, although she had accepted her skin color, she still experienced racism around her. In this expressive essay that's developed by narration, Zora Neale Hurston demonstrates different experiences with a common meaning and effectively using imagery and literary devices to vividly narrate the essay.

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Many stereotypes of African culture have emerged due to western literature and media and first hand accounts of explorers. Things Fall Apart offers a view into the truth and reality of African cultures, which are often misconceptualized by these stereotypes. Acebe shows how African society functions well without assistance from foreign travelers. In Things Fall Apart, Achebe counters the imperialist stereotypes of Africa by keeping certain words in the Igbo language, as opposed to translating them into English, to fight back against the spreading western culture and to embrace their own way of life. He also counters the imperialist stereotypes of Africa by using Igbo proverbs to show how their culture values many of the same things that western

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The world cannot appreciate the African identity unless they don 't embrace it themselves. It is also a message for non-Africans to remember their privileged histories and acknowledge its part in their social position in the present world as the issues of identity can not be addressed unless they look at the African community from the lens of their

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The negative perceptions about Africa continued to persist in the 20th century and in the 1960’s Trevor Roper, an Oxford Professor cited that there was nothing worth of any value to be termed as African History. He further stated that what existed was only, “the history of the Europeans in

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