Analyzing Oprah Winfrey's Eulogy For Rosa Parks

This paper will analyze Oprah Winfrey’s eulogy for Rosa Parks and explain the significance of her speech in engaging grief, mourning, and funeral process in general. When a family member, a friend or an important person dies, people get bereaved. They experience mixed feelings including anger, confusion, and anxiety. This state is referred to as grief. People express their loss and bereavement to others in a number of ways. This process is referred to as mourning. In this paper, Oprah’s eulogy on Rosa Parks will feature in form of lines, passages, or extracts which forms a good application of the language and exact words to explain the subject of grief, bereavement, and funeral process.

When one is bereaved, there is a change in status. For example, a when parents die, children become orphans, when a husband dies a wife becomes a widow, and when a wife dies the husband becomes a widower and so on. Oprah explains in her eulogy up how she grew up in the South and she took Rosa Parks as her hero. Oprah Winfrey recognized and honored her even before Rosa refused to surrender her seat to a white man. Rosa’s death meant that Oprah had lost a heroin and a

‘sister’ she always looked up to. Oprah referred to Rosa as her ‘sister’ to show how she was close she was to Rosa. In the speech, Oprah expressed bereavement using memories of Rosa Parks that she knew and those she was told to by her father.
Grief is intense distress or sorrow which results from a loss.

It is a process through which one responds to bereavement. Rosa Park was a renowned award winning civil activist and Oprah Winfrey explains her personal experiences that define both what is distinctive and universal concerning a given culture’s experiences through grief. In her eulogy for Rosa Park, “...God uses good people to do great things.” Oprah expresses her love, honor and respect for Rosa. To her, Rosa Parks was not an ordinary elderly person. Nevertheless, she was a constant source of inspiration and delight for Oprah. She lived her entire life, cherishing and looking up to Rosa for her exciting, bold and rewarding life. Instead, Oprah dealt with the grief of losing her heroin by celebrating and emulating Rosa’s strength, conviction and

courage.
Mourning is an expression of the deceased person’s feelings and thoughts, and varies with culture. Death is a common experience. It spares no community of the people it loves, values, and depends on. Oprah attended Rosa Parks’ funeral to say her final thank you and goodbye. To her, Rosa was a ‘sister’, a great woman who dedicated her entire life to serve the people, to do work for every person irrespective of race, color, gender and age. Oprah gave her eulogy in front of family, amazing choir, admirers, Reverend Braxton and friends who were mourning Rosa Parks. The main purpose her speech was to express her appreciation of Rosa Parks to the people. Rosa Parks was a person the whole society valued and loved for her extreme heights in the Civil Rights Movement. Everyone had a reason to mourn her.