How It Feels To Be Colored Me

Words: 900
Pages: 4
Open Document
Self-realization or self-actualization is defined as fulfillment of one’s talents and potentialities, especially considered as a drive or need to present in everyone. Hurston allowed the reader to be her passenger along her experience of finding herself and what works for her. I think Hurston was true to herself and there were specific instances in when she chose to “wear the mask” which stemmed from Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s’ poem “We Wear the Mask”. The theme of self-actualization and realization is shown in Hurston’s “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” through awareness, confidence, and masking.
In Hurston’s essay “How It Feels to Be Colored Me”, the reader is taken along on her journey of awareness. Hurston’s awareness of her heritage was continuously mention throughout the short narrative. The transition from a small predominately black town into a mixed-race town was a shock for Hurston as she did not see herself as the “Zora of Orange County anymore, she was now a little colored girl”. The statement shows that she knew that along with the change in her environment, the high status that she once held was hidden and in the eyes of the others she was an average black girl. During her porch sittings, she was critical of the whites that passed through and was observant as to how they acted when compared to the Southerners. She stated in the text that she only saw white people when “they rode through town and …show more content…
By allowing herself to look beyond the color of her skin, she exhibited to the reader how the theme of self-actualization and realization was shown through awareness, confidence, and masking in her work “How It Feels to Be Colored Me”. After reading the essay, it gave me a sense of empowerment. This is a reading that I would suggest others to closely read and analyze to get a deeper understanding of the message that she is trying to send to blacks. It proves that even a negative can be turned into a
Show More

Related Documents: How It Feels To Be Colored Me

How It Feels To Be Colored Me Analysis

In Hurston’s essay, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me,” the tone shifts as the author describes her life in Eatonville, Jacksonville, and New York. Initially, the tone is lighthearted and humorous when Hurston speaks about her childhood in Eatonville. At this time, Hurston is not aware of all the discrimination that African Americans face. In fact, “white people differed from colored to [Hurston] only in that they rode through town and never lived there” (Hurston). However, the tone shifts from welcoming…

Words 427 - Pages 2

How It Feels To Be Colored Me Essay

How it feels to Be Colored Me Everyone's life can reflect an image that many people may see as wrong, but does a person’s skin color affect the way they are treated? With the tough times that people have, it does not all ways mean that a person will be unpleasant. With that being said many people think that their life is a harder than every other person because of their skin color or by the way they were raised, and they turn that unpleasantness into hate against people who do not look like them…

Words 1118 - Pages 5

How It Feels To Be Colored Me Summary

The main message of Hurston’s article “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” is that all people are equal and should therefore be treated the same way regardless of their skin color. Some people treat different colored persons as someone useless. In her article Hurston says, “I feel my race. Among the thousand white persons, I am a dark rock surged upon, and over swept, but through it all, I remain myself” (2). There really is no difference in skin color; what matters is what each person has inside. Though…

Words 274 - Pages 2

How It Feels To Be Colored Me Rhetorical Devices

explain how American people see her and her feelings towards the bad comments people tell her. Hurston also uses imagery to illustrate how she feels from the inside, but how she can’t show it in front of civilized people. Another rhetorical device that she uses is tone. Hurston gives her speech a sarcasm, but serious tone to portray her emotions and how she does not loose self-confidence in herself. With all of the above rhetorical devices she explains the theme of her article “How It Feels to Be Colored…

Words 221 - Pages 1

How It Feels To Be Colored Me Literary Devices

In 1865, all slaves were freed in the United States. Slaves were finally allowed to start a new life; a life of freedom and equality. But were these people really treated equal? In “How It Feels to Be Colored Me”, Hurston makes use of literary elements such as analogies and symbols in the final paragraph, and also expresses metaphors and allusions when talking about the race of her life. These literary terms have enhanced the meaning of the work by accentuating that everyone in society should be…

Words 592 - Pages 3

Zora Neale Hurston's How It Feels To Be Colored Me

Throughout Zora Neale Hurston’s essay “How It Feels to be Colored Me”, Hurston’s writing portrays a light and optimistic tone while using various metaphors to convey the essay’s theme that, “…the world belongs to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less” (Hurston). At thirteen, Hurston moved from the exclusively colored community of Eatonville, Florida that she had grown up in to Jacksonville, Florida. It was then that Hurston realize she was no longer seen as “Zora of Orange…

Words 191 - Pages 1

Zora Neale Hurston How It Feels To Be Colored Me Analysis

"How it Feels to be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston is an essay speaking about her expressing thoughts on being a person of color. Hurston explains, “she is not tragically colored.” Hurston gets many people of color are hurt that slavery. Slavery is an unforgettable point of time in American history, but she will not dwell on the past. Considering, slavery took place years ago and colored people are living in a new day and time. Zora Hurston writing makes you think from a positive perspective.…

Words 261 - Pages 2

Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter From Birmingham Jail

stand up to them and tell them how you feel about something they did. Most of the time, once you talk it through, the problem isn’t a problem anymore because it gets fixed. Other times, it can lead with bigger problems. Martin Luther King Jr., was someone who spoke up about the unfair laws and treament colored people got. He spoke up without violence. At one of his protest, he got arrested without any reason of getting locked up. At his cell, he wrote a letter saying how he felt about every cruel thing…

Words 782 - Pages 4

The Help Essay

Girl can hear me that dirty ain't a color, disease ain't the negro side of town. I want to stop that moment from coming – and it come in every white child's life – when they start to think that colored folks are not as good as whites.” (Page 96.) 3. “Books shall not be interchangeable between the white and colored schools, but shall continue to be used by the race first using them.” (Page 173.) My first reaction to this story was, shocked. The reason I was shocked was because of how bad the racism…

Words 355 - Pages 2

Review: The Mcnay

it was a real place, YouTube videos of how a certain piece was created, audio of what the painting would sound like, and a seek and find of different objects that were located in a few of the paintings or photographs. The piece that I chose named “La Fortune” by Man Ray is oil on Canvas 24 x 29 in. painting (description card next to painting). It looks to be scenery with bright colors at first. I was actually attracted to it because of its brightly colored cartoon-like rolling clouds and the extremely…

Words 927 - Pages 4