Rhetorical Analysis Of The Girl In Black

Alexa Snyder
Joann Stout
Writing Sem
31 March 2023
“The Girl in Black” Rhetorical Analysis
On January 25, 2020, I wrote a poem called “The Girl in Black.” It was a 24 line free verse poem. With it being free verse, that gave me even more freedom. It was an assignment that had a set due date and was presented to my English class. There wasn’t any instruction about what it had to be about, so I took that opportunity to express some feelings I had been holding in. The poem was successful in the fact that I received an A. It was also a success in the fact that I allowed myself to be vulnerable. In my poem, “The Girl in Black,” several aspects affected the way I wrote the piece, including exigence, audience, and genre, but the most impactful was

I hid my feelings and was having a really tough time. Then there was a glimmer of hope, of happiness, but I can never get away from my past. It follows me everywhere, affecting my every move, every thought. The poem mentions how I dress in all black, representing how I feel inside. A quote from my poem, “The bling sprint toward perceived happiness. Yet there is something holding her back. A single dark cloud. The cloud of shame” (“The”). This line specifically accomplishes the message I was trying to get across. I was trying to prove to people that I was having a hard time, even though I may seem okay on the outside. I would say I accomplished my goal. The poem was needed because it was an assignment, it was especially important to my grade because I was failing the class. I also remember it being one of my first good grades in that class, I was so proud. The poem being about myself had an effect on what I decided to share. There are some things I was uncomfortable sharing so I decided not to include them. I decided to include just enough about myself that people would stop and think, but not get concerned. An example of this being, “The cloud of shame. The shame that eats you from the inside out” (“The”). This line did not reveal what the “shame” is but was able to make people think “what shame does she have?” It adds a sort of mysterious vibe to my

At the time, the discourse communities I was a part of were a highschool student failing English, a daughter, a girlfriend, an ex girlfriend, an undiagnosed depressed teenager, and a straight A student. I was taking an Honors English class for the first time and I hated English. I was really struggling with my English class, my grade had never been that low before. I felt as if I was disappointing everyone around me. I was having issues with my ex boyfriend and things at home were hard. I was also struggling with depression, but had told no one. I was a girl who held everything inside, while trying to help others. I wrote this poem as a way for me to tell people that I was struggling without having to come out right and say it. It was almost as if the poem was a cry for help. And it did make an impact on the way my peers thought of me, but not a great enough impact for anyone to be concerned, which is what I was going for. I was dealing with everything on my own, but I wanted to shed some light in case anyone else was feeling the same way. The only people who really understood what I was talking about in my poem were my close friends that I had talked to about it. This was a way for me to speak up without actually speaking