- Published: December 23, 2021
- Updated: December 23, 2021
- University / College: Princeton University
- Level: Secondary School
- Language: English
- Downloads: 7
Analysis of Huston’s essay
Hurston organization of the essay into four parts creates a flow of information from one stage to the other. It also indicates her transformation from one stage of life to the other. In addition, it helps in analyzing her thoughts in all four stages and how she grows from a humble background and thoughts to become a person who can make her own decisions in life.
In the first stage, she describes her childhood and the challenges she went through to become herself. The part also introduces the differences she met due to her color and the color difference between her in terms of social status. In the second part she describes how she understood herself as an equal being whose difference with other people was just skin color. At this stage, she started contrasting with the previous notion that she is a daughter of a slave and started looking at herself as a person who has a task to accomplish. In the third part she starts appreciating her origin an aspect that plays a great role in going through to the fourth stage. At this stage she becomes proud of who she is and how far she has come despite being a black American. The four stages support each other in outlining the process that Hurston went through before appreciating her own self.
The main image that is used by Hurston to convey her message is that of a colored person whose colors are hard to identify. This is indicated by her statements that she is brown, black, dark etc. This makes it hard for the people to describe her as black and instead recognize her as an American citizen.