Question and Author

Zora Neale Hurston, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” Thesis | | “But I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all” | In her thesis she explains that even though people do discriminate against her, she does not feel colored. She states “There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, or lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all” to show how she doesn’t care that she’s colored. Being color does not determined who is she is or what she will be. She doesn’t get depressed that she’s colored. Being colored just describes one single fact about her. | Challenge/ Defense | | “Sometimes, I fell discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.” | DEFEND: These sentences definitely support her thesis because like she said, “I do not mind all” which expresses the idea that she doesn’t care whether she’s black, white or anything. The only thing that does bother her is how some people can be ignorant at times and “deny themselves the pleasure of my company…” | (1) Over statement | | “But even so, it is clear that I was the first “Welcome-to-our-state” Floridian, and I hope that Miami Chamber of Commerce will please take notice.” | The author exaggerates in this sentence making it seem as if no one in the whole state was friendly or welcoming. Like if they were all grumpy and impolitely. | (2) Rhetorical Shift | | “When I disembarked from the river-boat at Jacksonville, she was no more. It seemed that I had suffered a sea change” | As I was reading the passage, I notice a rhetorical shift in this few sentences. When the author wrote “…she was no more.” Makes it seem as if she was giving up on herself as if somehow everything she had just came crumbling down and she was no longer the fun person everyone knew her as. | (3) Simile | | “But in the main, I feel like a brown bag of