Poem Analysis: Something You Should Know

Zora Neale Hurston’s work“ How It Feels to Be Colored Me” where she portrayed her experiences as an African American girl living in American during the 20th century. In the piece of work, she stated how she feels about being part of the Black community. How segregation, discrimination, and, racism affected her life. As differ from others authors during the Harlem Renaissance, she begins by telling that she wasn't aware she belonged to a racial group in the world. She didn't understand the separation and segregation between people of different races. As contrast from other authors that were aware of the situation and were struggling to fight with racial discrimination, during that time. Zora was quiet out of the blue, her work and personality

Lorna Dee Cervantes' poem, “Poema para los Californios Muertos” (“Poem for the Dead Californios”), is a commentary on what happened to the original inhabitants of California when California was still Mexico, and an address to the speaker's dead ancestors. Utilizing a unique dynamic, consistently alternating between Spanish and English, Cervantes accurately represents the fear, hatred, and humility experienced by the “Californios” through rhythm, arrangement, tone, and most importantly, through use of language.

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.

“I was not Zora of Orange County any more, I was now a little colored girl” (Hurston, 1928). She finally got a taste of discrimination. In Barbara Johnson’s journal entitled, “Thresholds of Difference: Structures of Address in Zora Neale Hurston,” she mentions that there is a loss of identity. “The ‘I’ is no longer Zora, and ‘Zora’ becomes a ‘she’” (Johnson, 1985). In a way, there is a theme of adaptability. This move did not break her spirit. This is known because she says that, “I am not tragically colored” (Hurston, 1928). Zora makes it known that she is not ashamed to be colored. Though white people would make it a point to mention how blacks are progressing in times, she refuses to stay tied to the memory of slavery or feel disgraced because she is

The more important in Zora Hurston's view is her personal identity. “At certain times I have no race, I am me." (14)

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

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).

I am off to a flying start and I must not halt in the stretch to look behind and weep.” Zora Neale Hurston made being Black apart of her identity as could be seen through her phenomenal

In “How it Feels to Be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston, she tells a compelling story of staying true to her identity as she transitioned in childhood from no difference in color to becoming a colored girl while going against the stereotypes of black people. Zora starts off as a thirteen-year-old girl in her hometown Eatonville, Florida where there was no difference in color because it was made up of African Americans with white people just passing through. Zora was a very animated girl who stood out for her quirky characteristics like dancing in the streets. Even though the people in town loved her, Zora was sent away to Jacksonville, Florida due to family complications.

2, pp. 358). When people reminded her that she is the granddaughter of slaves, it doesn’t sadden her. She acknowledges that slavery is a part of the past and “slavery is the price I paid for civilization” (Hurston, vol. 2, pp. 359). Zora now saw herself differently amongst a sea of white peoples; prior to now she was unaware of any differences. However, even feeling colored she finds herself; the negative doesn’t define her. She doesn’t see the difference she just sees the contrast of color. She notices a contract while at a jazz club with a white male nearby. She becomes consumed by the music from the band and in her head she is in the South African jungle doing a deer dance hunting for prey. The orchestra finishes the song and the white male sitting near only acknowledges it was good music. The song hadn’t touched him like it had her. He only heard the song that she could feel in her bones and that is when she notices the contrast between them. “He is so pale with his whiteness then and I am so colored” (Hurston, vol.2, pp. 359).

Zora Neale Hurston lived a very carefree life, even after she “realized when she was colored”. At a young age, when “the front porch might seem a daring place for the rest of the town, but it was a gallery seat for me”, Zora was not hindered by the societal norms that plagued blacks with fear and timidity. She did what she liked, even after her own family would try to stop her. She thought very little of what others thought of her because when she watched the white people roll into town, she “didn't mind the actors knowing that I liked it”. Zora would go as far as speaking to “them in passing” and if they waved back at her. As she grew older, Zora became increasingly confident in herself, despite the dehumanizing and oppressive way of Americans at this time. She would “Sometimes...feel discriminated against” but refused to get angry. In fact, she was astonished and would ask herself “How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company?”

In Zora Neale Hurtson's “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” we encounter a very broad descriptive essay where Hurston explores the new found discovery of her self-admiration. To complement the wide variety of description used throughout the essay, Hurston includes imagery and figurative language to capture the reader with a first class seat on a journey with her. At the beginning of the essay, Hurtson dives into her childhood in Eatonville, Florida, describing moments using anecdotes when she sang and danced throughout the streets and greeted the neighbors. Back then she was free from the scaring feeling of being different and was "everybody's Zora". But she immediately became different when she was thirteen and her mother passed away and she left home to attend boarding school in Jacksonville.

“How it feels to be colored me” was written in 1928. While Zora, was growing up she was raised in an all black town in Eatonville, Florida up to her thirteenth year. Through-out her years growing up see saw only a few white people passing through coming and going to Orlando, Florida. The main point of view of “How it feels to be colored me” is the differences between whites and blacks, because back then they didn’t like each other. Zora , said “white people differed from colored to me only in that they rode through town and never lived there.”

After first reading Edna St. Vincent Millay’s lyric poem, “If I Should Learn, in Some Quite Casual Way,” one may be taken aback by just how unconcerned the speaker, possibly Millay herself, seems to be with this scenario. Only after going back through the poem a time or two can one understand what Millay truly means. Figures of speech are methodically placed to give the impression that not much effort went into this mere thought.

“How It Feels to Be Colored Me” is an essay written in 1928 by Zora Neale Hurston, one of the most prominent writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Her essay replies to and attempts to deconstruct two concepts from an equally prominent Harlem Renaissance writer’s novel, W.E.B. DuBois’s The Souls of Black Folk. These concepts are “the veil” and “double consciousness”. Even though she does recognize the existence of the veil and double consciousness, Zora claims that she doesn’t feel a “warring of two souls” between her blackness and Americanness, and instead, she expresses her refusal to be defined by any single aspect of her identity, and asserts her individualism as being more salient than any racial or national ties.