Max Berger
Ms. Weiser
AP Language
27 January 2023
There is no doubt that the early 1900s were an extremely difficult time for minorities in America, particularly those who were black. They faced segregation, racism, and plain inequity in everyday life Yet, some black people were able to handle this injustice better than others. In her 1928 essay “How it Feels to be Colored Me,” American author Zora Neale Hurston details the mindset that helped her combat this feeling of sorrow, most likely to help struggling black people who might have been struggling to find their place. Throughout her essay, Hurston provides diction, contrast, and figurative language among other devices to convey that although racial inequality does exist, it is important
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Hurston employs cause and effect to illustrate how she “left Eatonville” a “Zora” but once at school and far from home, she became “a little colored girl”. Hurston describes how even when she began to learn of the racial inequities in the US, she kept a positive mindset. She illustrates “there is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes,” utilizing personification to illustrate her genuine happiness. Again contrasting her attitude to the “typical” attitude of many blacks, Hurstron illustrates the “sobbing school of Negrohood '' who blame the hand they have been dealt and just feel sorry for themselves. Nonetheless, Hurston believes there is no use fretting about the past because she is “too busy sharpening (her) oyster knife” to worry about what she cannot control. This references the Shakespeares saying “the world is your oyster” and conveys excitement at the possibilities open to everybody if they approach the world in the right spirit. Hurston provides an emotional appeal to the reader by eliciting feelings of inspiration. She describes how although it may be hard, it is weak and pathetic to weep and cry at your situation, instead of preserving and being the best version of