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Transcript

Incident by Countee Cullen

Rhetorical Devices

Title

Incident - an event or occurence

Makes the reader ask - what is this incident? who is involved? - draws interest

Alliteration - "Heart-filled, head-filled"

Rhythm - ABAB - using sing-song cadence to talk about deep issues - irony

Tone - colloquial (ex: use of contractions, "keep looking")

Dialogue - emphasises the word "Nigger" at the end of the line - use of quotes

Structure - an anecdote in three stanzas written as a ballad

Meaning

Themes

Once riding in old Baltimore,

Heart-filled, head-filled with glee

I saw a Baltimorean

Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small, And he was no whit bigger,

And so I smiled, but he poked out His tongue and called me, “Nigger.”

I saw the whole of Baltimore,

From May until December;

Of all the things that happened there, That’s all that I remember.

  • Prejudice - affects of racism
  • Language and Communication - history and power behind the word "Nigger"
  • Coming of Age - the moments that define us
  • Even though they are both young, it shows how imbedded these racial conficts are
  • The boy who called him "Nigger" did not think twice about it, and the speaker, accepted it
  • Obviously it did affect him deeply though as we see in the last line: "That's all I remember"
  • Racism can ruin one moment, and subsequently, one incident can affect someone's sense of self
  • Baltimore represented a lot of the racial tension of the pre-60s and later the progression of the 60s - it was the center of both oppression and civil rights movement
  • Microcasm (state of racism in America) --> Microcosm (this speaker's experience)

Author Information

Background

-African American man (1903-1946)

-Leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance

-Influenced by many white institutions but also exerienced racism firsthand

-Wrote "Incident" in 1925

Setting: Baltimore

Vehicle: on a bus

In the 1920s, public transportation was where people of different races were forced to interact - racial conflict

Time: May - December

POV

  • Assumed African-American person (age 8)
  • looking back on an incident that changed his perspective on life
  • retrospectve tone
  • "once" - reminicent of once upon a time
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