In the text "Shame" by Dick Gregory, he describes his personal experience with shame and struggles caused by poverty. He describes an embarrassing childhood experience in which his teacher stated that he didn’t have a father, to the whole class. Two rhetorical strategies used in the text are imagery and repetition.
Gregory describes a girl he admired, he went out of his way to look more presentable and do things for her. “...Helene Tucker, a light complexioned little girl with pigtails and nice manners.” (Paragraph 1) Gregory uses imagery to illustrate her nice qualities. Helene Tucker was clean, smart and popular. Her character is used as a comparison to Gregory. Gregory was the complete opposite to her. He wasn’t white, wealthy or clean. She had these qualities that he didn’t have because she wasn’t in poverty.
Living in poverty, he had to struggle with hunger and to find food. Explaining his struggle, “pregnant” is repeated. (Paragraph 5) Repetition is used to emphasize many hardships he faces, each having a heavy burden. He uses the word pregnant to explain these hardships, things he had to deal with but can’t do anything about them. He couldn’t be clean, buy new shoes, or have better living conditions.
Response/Opinion Piece
One issue brought up in the text, was that Gregory admired Helene because she had qualities that he didn’t have. I think that people admire others’ qualities because of this, and which may also be caused by insecurities. Conscious on how he appeared to Helene, Gregory was insecure about his appearance, so he tried to make himself more presentable. I believe that due to insecurities, people change themselves. They can change their appearance, or change how they act to other people. They change how they represent themselves.
