Of How It Feels To Be Colored Me By Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston in the essay, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” explains that despite the cultural backgrounds, everyone is essentially the same. Hurston supports her explanation by comparing the way she grew up compared to white people. The author’s purpose is to inform a multi-racial audience in order to decrease racial tension and increase unity and awareness. Hurston talk about racial identity and her idea that being black is the same as being white, except for a few cultural differences. She talks about what it is like to be a colored person. Hurston focuses on positive ways she experiences her race. She uses cultural differences and similes to portray this. She says, “Music! The great blobs of purple and red emotion have not touched

The imagery used throughout the essay describes how the author feels when she is surrounded by white people. Hurston describes the feeling as is she is a “dark rock surged upon, overslept by a creamy sea”. The dark rock represents the author, while the creamy sea represents the white people surrounding her. The author uses this as a way to describe how she isn't changed by being around white people. They might surround her but she is still herself. Along with imagery, Hurston occasionally uses humor throughout the essay. She beings the essay by stating, “I am colored but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating the circumstances except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother’s side was no an Indian chief.” At this time some colored people make themselves feel better by saying they have Indian blood, and Hurston says this as a joke, making fun of the colored people who way they aren't fully black.This shows that Hurston is proud of her race and makes no excuses. A final rhetorical device used in the essay is anecdotes. Hurston uses an anecdote to describe when she first became aware that she was colored. She recalls, “I remember the very day that I became colored.” Up to this point in her life, Hurston has only lived in a black community, so when she was exposed to a larger white population, she realizes