Two similar, yet different, essays are “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston, and “No Name Woman” by Maxine Hong Kingston. Both of these essays take place in different areas with different events, but have similar meanings and lessons to be learned.
The piece, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me,” was about Hurston and her experiences moving from one town to another. The town she was first in was Eatonville, which was a town full of black people. Hurston enjoyed being the only colored person to stick out from the rest by greeting tourists who passed by the town, while other colored people hid within their homes. One day, her family moved to Jacksonville, which was a town full of white people. Hurston felt that she did not belong with anyone at all, not even people who were of similar skin color. Throughout the essay, Hurston repeats that she does not feel colored or does not have a race.
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The essay, “No Name Woman,” was about Kingston’s aunt and the events that led up to her suicide.
Although, half of the essay was split into two different points of view of what happened before her aunt’s suicide. The first point of view was by Kingston’s mother, who gave a short perspective as to what happened to her sister-in-law. The second point of view was by Kingston herself, who gave her own version as to what she believed had occurred during those tragic moments, even though she wasn’t there during those events. Kingston believed that there were good reasons why her aunt did what she did, and that she was completely innocent as to what happened with her. However, Kingston’s mother believed that her sister-in-law was completely at fault and disgraced the family. Her mother intimidates Kingston by telling her the story and says she must not tell anyone, yet the author reveals her mother’s thoughts in her
piece. These two essays have many similarities when it comes to the lives of the main characters and what they went through. Both essays included the main characters, Hurston and Kingston’s aunt, to be forgotten in some type of way. Because of this, they felt as if they were isolated from other people. Both of the main characters also felt isolated from their own race. Both of the main characters from the essays just wanted some kind of sense of acceptance from other people. Both essays also included female main characters, which creates another disadvantage upon their inferiority due to their race. The two essays have similarities, but have several differences on the origins and development of their sufferings. Kingston’s essay included a suicide, while Hurston’s essay did not impact the reader as dramatically with the absence of the concept of death. With death and suicide, Kingston’s essay leaves behind a deeper meaning and feeling to the reader than Hurston’s essay. Both authors also had their stories take place in different countries; Hurston’s took place in America while Kingston’s in China. A women who would wrong or be wronged in America would not be taken as seriously as how people would take it in China. Prostitution has become a common crime in America, which has desensitized the American population to the shame it brings. On the other hand, the Chinese culture views misdemeanors more critically. In China, it is considered a disgrace to that person as well as the family. In conclusion, both of the essays share a common meaning with the messages the essays are attempting to convey to the readers. As well as having similarities, the two essays also have different events that build up to their common meaning.
However, there is something to say about promoting pride within one’s community. There has been a trend in education to promote celebration and awareness instead of tolerance to combat racism. This aligns with what Hurston tries to argue. The traditional “color-blindness” model has proven not to work. At the same time, it can be argued that this is a redundant “fight fire with fire” tactic. Hurston conveniently ignores the many ways that blacks are treated less than whites within the united states at the time. Would blacks be better off if they were left to themselves in a constant situation of minority? This might have been a situation where pride was successfully sacrificed to promote give equal opportunity to all
In “Ain’t I a Woman”, Sojourner uses repetition, pathos and addressing opposing viewpoint to make her argument more persuasive, while in “ How it Feels to Be Colored Me”, Hurston changes her tones of writing and use metaphor to convince her audience.
Janie is first isolated from her peers as a child. She lives behind the Washburn's, a white family and this causes her to not, “know Ah wuzn't white till Ah was round six years old” (Hurston 8). This isolation made it hard to incorporate into a segregated school. She thought she was just another white child but she was deadly mistaken, “de chillun at school got to teasin' me 'bout livin' in de white folks' back-yard” (Hurston 9). Janie's location of living “classed off” how th...
Ethnic group is a settled mannerism for many people during their lives. Both Zora Neale Hurston, author of “How It Feels to Be Colored Me; and Brent Staples, author of “Just Walk On By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space,” realize that their life will be influenced when they are black; however, they take it in pace and don’t reside on it. They grew up in different places which make their form differently; however, in the end, It does not matter to them as they both find ways to match the different sexes and still have productivity in their lives.. Hurston was raised in Eatonville, Florida, a quiet black town with only white passer-by from time-to-time, while Staples grew up in Chester, Pennsylvania, surrounded by gang activity from the beginning. Both Hurston and Staples share similar and contrasting views about the effect of the color of their
From slavery to the Harlem Renaissance, a revolutionary change in the African American community, lead by poets, musicians and artists of all style. People where expressing their feeling by writing the poem, playing on instruments and many more. According to the poem “ I, Too” by Langston Hughes and article “How it feels to be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurtson, the poem and article connects to each other. The poem is about how a African Man, who sits in the dinning café and says that, one day nobody would be able to ask him to move anywhere, and the in the article written by Zora Neale Hurtson, she describes how her life was different from others, she was not afraid of going anywhere. They both have very similar thoughts,
Narrator, this was a third person account, thus leaving much to the imagination. The conversation’s language was left as if truly taken from an African American speaker in the south in such a time. The way Hurston made the scenery appear before me was like a white sheet gets stained with red wine, unable to wash out of my mind. The narration was very brut in a grammatical manner, giving a wash bucket effect of never being settled.
Summary: how it feels to be colored me In ‘How it feels to be colored me’ Neale Hurston opens up to her pride and identity as an African-American. Hurston uses a wide variety of imagery, diction using figurative language freely with metaphors. Her tone is bordering controversial using local lingo. Hurston begins the essay in her birth town: Eatonville, Florida; an exclusively Negro town where whites were a rarity, only occasionally passing by as a tourist.
Though her race was a victim of brutal, harsh discrimination, Hurston lived her life as an individual first, and a person of color second. In the narrative “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston, Hurston says, “The cosmic Zora emerges. I belong to no race nor time. I am the eternal feminine with its string of beads” (Hurston 3). She feels as though an extraordinary form of herself is brought out. This form is not bound by physical traits and is the everlasting woman with the cards she is dealt. The “cosmic Zora” emerging represents the empowered, fearless Zora from Orange County, Florida. When she says that she belongs “to no race nor time”, she means that her race and background do not define who she is as an individual. “The eternal feminine” symbolizes the
She even talks about how they were being generous to her. For example, Hurston says, “During this period, white people differed from colored to me only in that they rode through town and never lived there. They liked to hear me “speak pieces" and sing and wanted to see me dance the parse-me-la, and gave me generously of their small silver for doing these things, which seemed strange to me for I wanted to do them so much that I needed bribing to stop, only they didn 't know it” (539). Hurston would soon find out that when she had to leave her small town to go to a boarding school because of family changes that the real world is full of racism and discrimination towards colored people. I think this is when she realizes that she is
Hurston, Zora Neale. “How It Feels to Be Colored Me.” Writer’s Presence: A Pool of Readings. 5th ed. Ed. Robert Atawan and Donald McQuade. Boston:Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006. 166-170. Print
Hurston does not concern herself with the actions of whites. Instead, she concerns herself with the self-perceptions and actions of blacks. Whites become almost irrelevant, certainly negative, but in no way absolute influences on her
I used “How it Feels to be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston as my mentor text for this essay.
In “How It Feels to Be Colored Me,” Hurston breaks from the tradition of her time by rejecting the idea that the African American people should be ashamed or saddened by the color of their skin. She tells other African Americans that they should embrace their color and be proud of who they are. She writes, “[A socialite]…has nothing on me. The cosmic Zora emerges,” and “I am the eternal feminine with its string of beads” (942-943). Whether she feels “colored” or not, she knows she is beautiful and of value. But Hurston writes about a time when she did not always know that she was considered colored.
The racism and discrimination against blacks in both Black Like Me and Black Boy show the hardships and racial injustice that blacks faced in the south with their share of differences and similarities. After reading Black Like Me and Black Boy, I have gained a better perspective, about how in Black Like Me when John Howard Griffin was a “black” man he was treated unequally as all blacks are and once he went back to being a white man those people who had treated him bad were now treating him with respect. However, in the end no matter the skin color some things are the same for both colors. In Black Boy, I have learned that the life of a young child, a black boy, is hard during the segregated south and can harshly affect the child while growing up. As I read, I came across some similarities between both works as well as some differences. Even though both works had their moments in which the characters faced struggles, I was still able to see optimism as well as hope for a better life and future.
Although literature set in the early 1900s in the United States focuses on the inequality that existed between white and colored people, much fails to mention the inequality that existed within the African American community. This inequality is especially seen in the actions of Joe Starks, Janie’s controlling second husband, in that everything he does as the mayor is excessive. After receiving the town streetlight, he ceremoniously “wiped it off carefully and put it up on a showcase for a week for everybody to see” and then he organizes a lavish lamplighting ceremony (140). Also, to ensure that the whole town knows how prosperous he is, Joe builds an elaborate two story house “with porches, with banisters, and such things” and he paints it “a gloaty, sparkly white” which is impossible to ignore(146). Furthermore, through the characterization of Mrs. Turner, Hurston also demonstrates the discrimination that African Americans faced within their own community. Mrs. Turner is disgusted by color people, even though she herself is one and she lives in an colored community in the Everglades. Mrs. Turner desires to have white skin and scorns all those who embraced their African American genetics and heritage (325). I believe that inequality within the colored community that Hurston expresses in her work is