Consider how the text "How It Feels to Be Colored Me" says what it does, how it represents its contents. In doing so we recognize genre, structure,...

Considering the rhetorical strategies that Hurston uses in "How It Feels to Be Colored Me" to appeal to logos, pathos, and/or ethos, the reader could focus on Hurston's use of metaphors throughout the essay.  For example, Hurston uses the metaphor of "a sharp white background" to pose herself as a person of color in the midst of a majority of white people.  The metaphor creates an image of her standing out against a "background" that is much different from herself.  Hurston wants the reader to understand how out of place she is made to feel in the racial divide, so using the metaphor and imagery appeals to both the reader's sense of logic and emotion.  Later in the essay, Hurston uses the metaphor of the "Great Stuffer of Bags" (the Creator or God) following her extended metaphor of the colored bags to represent people.  Hurston tells the reader that likely the "Stuffer" randomly filled the bags with all the same contents to suggest that no matter what race, people are essentially the same.  Again, Hurston appeals to the reader and asks him or her to consider the values of humanity that we hold.