“How It Feels To Be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston includes imagery, metaphors, and analogy to take the reader on a voyage, that illustrates the finding of her self-identity. She writes about how she understands who she is, not as only a colored girl, but all of who she is. It was not until her mother died and she was sent to a boarding school in Jacksonville when she started to feel “colored.” Colored was how other people perceived her and was not as much of a dilemma for her it as it was for outsiders. Toward the conclusion of the poem, she describes how we as people are all essentially the same and how we should all find pride and worth in our inner self instead of the color of our skin. Hurston uses imagery, metaphors, and diction to display not only how outsiders perceived who she was, but also how she perceived herself in terms of being “colored”.
Furthermore, Zora delivers imagery throughout “How It Feels To Be Colored Me” demonstrating that uses of feel and senses to lead to the finding of herself. Type of imagery she uses emphasizes how she believes she is apart of America as a whole and not just simply a color. Zora uses imagery in the Cabaret scene when she states” It constricts the thorax and splits the heart with its tempo and narcotic harmonies, my pulse is throbbing like a war drum.” The imagery used in this part of the passage conveys a sense of sound and passion of listening to music. Zora uses imagery to compare the culture of blacks between the white culture, which conveys that black culture is worth celebrating. Hurston uses a conversational tone to display imagery of her childhood, in the beginning of the passage describing moments when she greeted neighbors and dance and sung in the streets. This description gives vivid imagery for the author’s thoughts.
Despite her feelings of pride of being colored, the author couldn’t help feeling different. The author Hurston states she was “thrown against a sharp white background”. Occasionally, she realized that she was a “brown bag of miscellany propped against a wall” in the company of other bags of different colors. This just goes to show that she never felt colored or different unless she was reminded. Nevertheless, she comprehended the similarity of their contents. This description gives a good picture for the author’s thoughts. The author uses these metaphors to underscore her isolation, which makes her revelation even more meaningful: physical features may be diverging, but people share the same essence.
Moreover, Author Hurston uses something well known to explain something less known, which is called an analogy, throughout “How it feels to be colored me”. Hurston uses a race analogy in the story that resonated with me "The terrible struggle that made me an American out of a potential slave said 'On the line!' The Reconstruction said 'Get set!'; and the generation before said 'Go!”. This statement uses idea of race to show that African Americans are progressing and should celebrate their development. There is a brown bag analogy in this story Hurston states "I feel like a brown bag of miscellany propped against a wall. against a wall in the company of other bags, white, red, and yellow.” This image of a brown bag filled with items to shows that everyone is the same inside.
Hurston uses these rhetorical devices to add and further her opinion. It added another dimension to her writing by combining metaphors, imagery, and analogy with her perspective. Using these devices, she separates herself from entitlement to past and present injustice. Hurston delivers a powerful message to challenge the mind-sets of her, and our, time.
