Rhetorical Analysis Of Cry By Zora Neale Hurston

In the first paragraph, Hurston starts off with saying, “I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother’s side was not an Indian chief” to employ irony that she thinks there has nothing wrong to be black. Hurston thinks that colored people don’t need to be an “Indian chef” to have a high status. In this case, she employs a fervor and optimistic tone to convey the readers how much she loves her own race that she is born even though she is black. Also, her use of irony also brings out how the white people at that time are more superior than the black, however, she disagrees and believes that all human race are equal.

Throughout this essay, Zora Neale Hurston argues that why do people have to judge each other base on the color of one’s skin first. Hurston lives in a all black community in Florida before she goes to the boarding school in Jacksonville. Before she leaves her hometown, she didn’t even bother to consider her race because everyone treats each other the same way. However, after she leaves to a community full with both black and white people, she realizes people discriminated against black people. This doesn’t affect her even though she is black, instead she takes the discrimination in

stride. She thinks one’s character is more important than one’s race.
When Hurston is describing the end of slavery in paragraph 7, she employs metaphor, “The operation was successful and the patient is doing well, thank you.” to demonstrate is a successful movement.

Hurston adopts a hopeful attitude toward slavery and believes that all her ancestors’ suffering are the price for civilization. She will not feel ashamed of having ancestors as slaves because she believes slavery brings civilization. And also because of this, she treats slavery as a chance for glory because it is able to brings success and civilization. Moreover, she also thinks that she shall get twice as much praise as a result based upon to all the sacrifices and

sufferings.
5. Hurston divides her essay into four sections and the first section is she describes herself as black and first realizes she is “colored” after she left her hometown. Then, in the second sections, she depicts herself as being black, but she is “not tragically colored”. She doesn't mind of what her race is actually, instead she is happy with what God made her to be. After, on the third section, she declares, “sometime it is the other way around.” The way she contrasts how the white people like music to how she likes music as a black people, she prefers as being black, who reacts with her most pure reactions. Finally, on the fourth section, she claims, “at certain times, I have no race, I am me” to demonstrates how she likes everyone no matter what race they are, and she hopes people can do the same way as well. She also employs a metaphor of a brown bag to show the insignificance of race. She depicts everyone as bags that makeup with different pieces and if all the bag are mixed into a pile, and refilled randomly, nothing will be altering too much. Just as Hurston states, “a bit of colored glass more or less would not matter.”