How Does Hurston View Personal Identity

In the essay “How It Feels to Be Colored Me”, author Zora Neale Hurston writes to an American audience about having maturity and self-conscious identity while being an African American during the early 1900’s through the 1920’s Harlem Renaissance. Hurston expresses and informs her audience about how she does not see herself as a color, and instead sees herself as all she is made up of on the inside. Her primary claim is that she is not “tragically colored” and she should not have a single care about how the world reminds her of how she should act about her race. Her essay chronicles her personal experiences in being an unapologetically colored woman and creates the argument that she should not ever feel self-pity for being black. She utilizes her personal anecdotes and weaves them with metaphors, analogies, and rhetorical questions in order to create an immersive experience for the reader. Furthermore, Hurston engages the reader with her slightly sarcastic, strong, and blissfully positive tone effectively creates a way with words that communicate her claims in an entertaining way.

The memoir “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston, was first published in 1928, and recounts the situation of racial discrimination and prejudice at the time in the United States. The author was born into an all-black community, but was later sent to a boarding school in Jacksonville, where she experienced “race” for the first time. Hurston not only informs the reader how she managed to stay true to herself and her race, but also inspires the reader to abandon any form of racism in their life. Especially by including Humor, Imagery, and Metaphors, the author makes her message very clear: Everyone is equal.

She grew up in a primarily black town where not many whites come through. So growing up she did not experience much racism until she was older. By her teen years she could not understand why someone would discriminate against her. But she was not insulted by the racism, she simply did not care. In the story she went to a jazz bar with one of her friends who was a white man. She explains her experience as “when I sit in the drafty basement that is The New World Cabaret with a white person, my color shows” (Hurston 977). Throughout the story she talks about how she does not feel any different from anyone else, except this moment. The white man cannot relate to Hurston because of their very different life experiences. Hurston really feels the jazz music and has a personal connection, whereas, the white man just thinks it is good

Instead, she portrays him as being racially whole and emotionally healthy. Hurston didn't want to change the world based on racial movements, she had her own ideas about things. Capturing the essence of Black womanhood was more important to her than social criticism.

The first motif, identity, appears initially in “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” where it says, “But I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow damned up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all.” (p. 115) Here, it is obvious that the author holds no shame in her skin nor self. She is proud of who she is despite the prejudice some hold against her. Hurston identifies as colored and does not care what others think. Her identity is unwavering. Also applicable to this idea is

Even though both Hurston and Hughes grew up around the same time period, they had very different ideals regarding their experience as African American’s as well as a different voice used within their works to convey their ideals. Hurston in her 1928 essay “How it Feels to be Colored Me” describes her childhood and coming of age with a delightful zest that cannot be contained. Although the essay does contain some dark moments such as when she describes her experience with her friend at the jazz club and the sudden realization of the racial difference between her and the other patrons, for the most part the work exudes her keen sense of dignity despite the popular opinion of the masses during that period. Lines in her essay such as “But I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes…I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it” (Abcarian, Klotz, and Cohen 812) beautifully express her sense of self dignity and refusal to give in to the negative energies surrounding her race. Despite the many hardships that the color of her skin caused her she was proud and determined to never let that stand in her way of

Racism is a cultural force that individuals can struggle against or yield to. It is a social construct, a free-floating force that affects everyone, white or black, weak enough to succumb to it. Hurston includes these ideas in the society and culture in which Janie lives in. The african-american community has always been under the rule of whites. So in order to acquire power, they feel that they must become like white people. In Their Eyes Were, whiteness provides power to those who possess it; this is shown by Nanny’s lecture, by Joe’s behavior, and by Mrs.Turner’s worshiping of caucasians.

One of Hurston’s stories, How it Feels to Be Colored Me, reflects the author’s perspective of the colored race (specifically herself). According to the story, when Hurston reached the age of thirteen, she truly “became colored” (1040). The protagonist was raised in Eatonville, Florida, which was mainly inhabited by the colored race. She noted no difference between herself and the white community except that they never lived in her hometown. Nevertheless, upon leaving Eatonville, the protagonist began losing her identity as “Zora,” instead, she was recognized as only being “a little colored girl” (1041). Hurston’s nickname “Zora” represents her individuality and significance; whereas, the name “a little colored girl” was created by a white society to belittle her race and gender (1041).

Hurston prides herself on who she is because of her background. Her identity of being a black woman in a world

In Zora Neale Hurston’s essay “How It Feels To Be Colored Me”, her racial identity varies based on her location. Towards the beginning of her life when Zora was in her own community she could be a lighthearted, carefree spirit. However, when she was forced to leave her community, Zora’s identity became linked to her race. In this essay I will demonstrate how Zora’s blackness is both a sanctuary and completely worthless.

Purpose- Hurston’s purpose is to demonstrate that she is proud of her color. She does not need the bragging rights of having Native American ancestry, nor does she ‘belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it.’

Hurston, on the other hand, lived in a town where only blacks lived until she was thirteen years old. Therefore, she only knew the “black” self. There was no second identity to contend with. She states that “white people differed from colored to me only in that they rode through town and never lived there.”2 She does not feel anger when she is discriminated against. She only wonders how anyone can not want to be in her company. She “has no separate feeling about being an American citizen and colored” (Hurston 1712).

“How It Feels to Be Colored Me” is a narrative essay by Zora Neale Hurston that recounts her experience of having her identity being drastically shifted from her personal self to a nameless colored girl living in a predominantly white society. Hurston uses descriptive language, metaphors, and symbols to help the reader empathize with her experience rather than simply understand it at a factual level. The narrative structure and emotional-perspective style Hurston uses makes the events easy to follow. The following is an in-depth analysis of the literary elements Hurston uses in this piece.

In “How It Feels to Be Colored Me’’ by Zora Neale Hurston, she expresses herself through her writing in order to showcase her experiences, and self dignity as an African American woman. Hurston begins by taking the reader back to pieces from her childhood, and where she grew up; in Eatonville, Florida. She shows how comfortable she felt in her own skin, and how she always had a great time interacting with neighbors, friends, family, and tourists that would pass through her neighborhood. There was never a moment Hurston felt out of place. That was until Hurston’s mother sadly passed away when Zora was only thirteen, and resulted in Zora having to move to a boarding school in Jacksonville. Everything she once knew, and cared about was taken away from her, and at such a young age she was forced to adapt. I myself have experienced something similar, as a thirteen year old I was forced to move from my mother’s house to my father’s house in a new city. I began High school with no friends to lean to, and a whole new environment to adjust to. Although, Hurston's, and my experience weren't equally as difficult, I could see where she is coming from. Hurston states how her boarding school had so much diversity in race that at times she felt out of place. Hurston explains how she transitions from, ‘’everyone’s Zora,’’ to for the first time feeling like a colored girl. She uses the expression ‘’everyone’s Zora’’ to

Zora Hurston illustrated “Someone is always at my elbow reminding me that I am the grand-daughter of slaves. It fails to register depression with me. Slavery is sixty years in the past. The operation was successful and the patient is doing well, thank you. 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!’ I am off to a flying start and I must not halt in the stretch to look behind and weep”(902). lines:45-50)”. It is evident that Hurston speaks alongside Brooks with feeling pride in being African American. She talks about how people always try to remind her of her ancestors and the past involving slavery and racism, and she makes it very clear that it does not phase her. She has the strong pride of being African American and how to live her current life honoring what her ancestors did rather than sit and sulk. Hurston used the device of an extended metaphor by how she explains how racism does not phase her by connecting the fact of how different generations in the past treated slaves and how far they have come and it is a good thing. The extended metaphor was effective because it allowed a string comparison and a bold highlight of the topic of how slaves were treated versus how African Americans are treated today. Meanwhile, Gwendolyn Brooks reinforces Hurston in her poetry