Paragraph 1: The one sentence paragraph also sets up the overall tone of Hurston's essay; she is unapologetic about both her identity and her heritage. She will say later in the essay, in paragraph 6, that she is "not tragically colored."
2: Eatonville is a significant town in Florida because it was an all-black self-governing town. The fact that Hurston does not realize she is colored is because of her childhood. She really did not feel discrimination because she was surrounded by those who looked like her. She only knew whites by those who traveled through her town on their way to, or from, Orlando.
3: This paragraph again shows Hurston's personality. She uses words that are linked to the theater: the porch was a "gallery seat" for her to watch the drivers going through town; the "proscenium box" was a place closest to the front of the stage. Hurston was a one-girl welcoming committee and asks that the "Miami Chamber of Commerce will please take notice."
4: Again, Hurston talks about the difference between herself as colored and the whites who drive through town. She ends the paragraph with her sense of place in Eatonville: she states, "[Eatonville] deplored any joyful tendencies in me, but I was their Zora nevertheless. I belonged to them, to the nearby hotels, to the county—everybody's Zora."
5: Hurston does not elaborate on why she went to Jacksonville at thirteen, but at that time, her mother passed away and her father remarried. It was then that Hurston was sent to a boarding school in Jacksonville.
6: Hurston did not share the view of many African Americans at this time (the late 1920s and 1930s) that they were being held back because of their heritage. (This sentiment would put her at odds with other writers and artists of the Harlem Renaissance.) Instead, she says, "I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife"—this knife is a small, sharp tool used to pry open oyster shells—again, a view of her personality as sharp and aggressive.
7: Again, Hurston shares that being black is not something that will hold her back. Instead of looking at slavery as something to dwell on and blame for her lot in life, she states:
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. Slavery is the price I paid for civilization, and the choice was not with me.
8: Hurston also feels that her "coloredness" gives her more push to excel than whites would ever have. In a way, she feels there is no other way to go but up.
9: Hurston also states that she feels more like the girl from Eatonville than the woman who is made aware of her skin color.
10: She uses a great metaphor in this paragraph about how she is "covered by the waters" when at Barnard College, and she exists; when the waters "ebb," she is herself again.
11: Jazz music was hitting mainstream culture in this time, and Hurston's description reveals her heritage to her African roots. She feels the primal tones of the music and hearkens back to the hunters in the jungles of Africa. However, her white friend who is with her is simply "sitting motionless in his seat, smoking calmly."
12: No more to add here.
13: This paragraph continues to contrast Hurston and her friend. For Hurston, she sees colors and feels emotions; for her friend, he is white in both what he feels and what he sees. He is just as pale as his complexion.
14: Hurston continues to make her feels more emotive. She gives the audience imagery and absolute statements: "I belong to no race nor time. I am the eternal feminine with its string of beads."
15: This paragraph continues in much the same vein as the fourteenth.
16: Again, Hurston's confidence comes through: "Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It's beyond me." She feels she is too great a character for anyone to not want to be in her company.
17: This last paragraph is one of her best metaphors. It is interesting to note the objects she includes in the bags:
A first-water diamond, an empty spool, bits of broken glass, lengths of string, a key to a door long since crumbled away, a rusty knife-blade, old shoes saved for a road that never was and never will be, a nail bent under the weight of things too heavy for any nail, a dried flower or two still a little fragrant
All of these objects can symbolize something in life, but her point is that it does not matter the color of our skin; we all contain a jumble of "small things priceless and worthless." These are the objects that have significance to us.
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