How It Feels To Be Colored Me By Zora Neale Hurston

Well known essayist, Zora Neale Hurston, in her vivid essay How it Feels To be Colored Me, Hurston explores her identity and self-worth through recounting her experiences with whites growing up. She narrates personal anecdotes from childhood through adulthood. Hurston’s purpose is to persuade readers that the color of one’s skin does not define ones worth. She establishes an informal tone in order to create a rapport with the reader. Lowering the readers defenses such that they be receptive to her radical idea that skin color is not ones identity. Hurston uses idiomatic metaphors to establish a close harmonious relationship in which there is a common understanding between her and the reader.

Hurston begins her essay be describing her realization at age thirteen that her race had something of entity to other people. She uses a metaphorical appeal, a figure of speech in which a word or

phrase literally denotes one kind of object or idea.

She explains to the reader that “slavery is a price [She] paid for civilization” (Hurston 7) and concludes that “the choice was not with her” (Hurston 7). She claims to the reader that what occurred in the past concerning slavery is behind her comparing her life to something that a majority of people have experienced, helping the reader to connect to an emotional part of Hurston’s life. She continues her stand in paragraph ten describing that she is “a dark rock surged upon, over swept by a creamy sea” (Hurston 10) in order, to explain to the reader that even though blacks had been seen as inferior she “still remained herself” (Hurston 10). She states this to establish an idea that even though you are surrounded by different kinds of people the color of your skin doesn’t matter. She concludes her essay speaking of the times when she

sees herself as a brown bag in company with bags of different colors. These bags whether different colors are a “jumble” (Hurston 11) with a “colored glass more or less” (Hurston 11). Through this metaphorical comparison Hurston impresses on the reader that we are all alike and what is seen on the outside is inevitable to one’s existence. Her journey from early childhood to maturity to explain that whites and blacks are no different from each other. Hurston conveys to the reader an informal tone in order to establish a conversational atmosphere although she is trying to pass across a radical idea. She appeals to ethos in order to make a common ground with readers that may share the same ideas.