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An Analysis Of Richard Wright's Essay 'Learning The Ethics Of Jim Crow'

523 Words3 Pages

Nevertheless, despite experiencing society 's construction of hierarchy based on race, her sense of self is one that remains intact. She closes her essay with an important metaphor where she sees herself as a “brown bag of miscellany propped against a wall. Against a wall in company with other bags, white, red, and yellow. Pour out the contents, and there is discovered a jumble of small things priceless and worthless.” In other words, the appearance of people might differ from one to another, however, at the end of the day who a person is does not depended on skin. Through this she highlights people are not what people think the “content” is in a a particular coloured bag. Moreover, Hurston 's sense of self does remain in the background when she does feel coloured. For example, she ends the metaphor of the sea by saying: “but through it all, I remain myself. When covered by the waters, I am; and the ebb reveals me again.” …show more content…

Hurston, however, remains above the ideas that society puts on her people and does not let it bother her. All the same, this is actually an oddity among the rest of the African American community. When comparing the essay with Richard Wright 's essay 'Learning the ethics of Jim Crow ', the experiences in these two essays are widely different. The basis of this difference is, as mentioned before, the way the writers grew up. Wright grew up in Arkansas in an area where society was a mixed society. In comparison, Hurston was not aware that she was black while Wright was confronted with the meaning of blackness in the South and its discrimination. He had to learn from a very young age that having a black skin means that chances and opportunities are not available to him to the same extent as white people. Dreams are dashed when he faces Southern reality and the discouragement of his mother and his community.1 In contrast, Hurston says that her mother encouraged her to dream big2 and throughout her life Hurston focused on “sharpening her

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