Blog topic #1: rhetorical strategies

Blog topic #1: rhetorical strategies
Similes/metaphors
• “Look like a little mouse been nibbling the biscuit, a rat run off with the ham” (54).
• He real fat and tall, look like a big yellow bear” (58).
• “She skinny as a bean and her face full of eyes” (59).
• “Remind me of a hog at the troth” (64).
• “Thought so sharp it go through me like pain” (69).
• “But it really sound sort of like panthers…” (120).
• “Hot like cooking dinner on a big stove in a little kitchen in August and July” (154).
Repetition
• Angels all in white, white hair and whit eyes, look like albinos. God all white too…” (96).
Double entrendre
• “Weeds come up on my land, I chop ‘em up. Trash blow over it I burn it” (57). –Harpo’s girlfriend’s dad is referring to Harpo not being good enough for his daughter.
Since Celie’s education was severely limited, her style of writing is fairly simplistic, so she does not use of variety of rhetorical strategies. The one strategy she uses in abundance is comparisons, or similes. This allows the reader to imagine what Celie is writing about, and to envision what her life was like. Her use of repetition when discussing angels and God shows how she somewhat glorifies white people; most of the black people she knows have taken advantage of her and they do not live very joyous lives. She longs for the white lifestyle, so the color white is symbolic of happiness, wealth, and superiority.