Rhetorical Analysis Essay for "Shame" by Dick Gregory

Writer, activist, and comedian, Dick Gregory, in his narrative, “Shame,” recounts a personal story of social class discrimination and shame. Gregory’s purpose is to reflect on a lesson of how discrimination can be experienced in places such as school.. Gregory achieves his purpose by employing the rhetorical devices repetition, resentful tone, and imagery.

Dick Gregory uses repetition throughout his narrative to convey his message of shame. In paragraph 5, he illustrates a negative and resentful scene by continuously stating the things e was pregnant with. He stated that he was “pregnant with poverty” and “no daddy in the next room,” to show the severity of his social class situation. Repetition was used in this narrative to emphasize the hardships he faced, each having a negative effect on him. 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. Through repetition, Gregory was able to create a shameful scene.
In addition, Gregory’s resentful tone aids to his subject of shame. He felt extremely embarrassed by his teacher exposing his social and family situation. After revealing his situation he states in paragraph 28, “ now there was shame everywhere,” which shows how greatly he was impacted by the situation. He continues to say what was shameful, including, “wearing the brown and orange and white plaid mackinaw the welfare gave to three thousand boys.”  These examples allowed him to reveal how humiliated he felt after his entire class found out that he was poor. The fact that his teacher was the one who revealed this made it even more embarrassing for him, since it made him realize that even people he looked up to him looked down upon him for being of a lower social class.

Throughout the narrative, Dick Gregory utilized imagery consistently. Specifically, in paragraph 22, Gregory uses imagery to show his personal definition of shame. When he says, “her nostrils getting big and her lips getting thin and her eyes opening wide,” it shows how vividly he remembered the situation. In this instance, Gregory was describing the moment when he asked his teacher how much money his dad should give to the community chest, and his teacher responding by revealing to the class that he didn't have a dad. His use of vivid imagery was able to both appeal to the audience’s emotions and develop this purpose of shame and what it is to him.
Dick Gregory’s anecdote revealed a situation in his life where he learned what shame was.  His tone changes throughout the text, going from positive, to shameful, and finishing off with a hateful tone. His use of strong verbs made the audience feel sympathy for the writer and contempt towards the teacher, which is quite ironic because he disliked the fact that his classmates felt sorry for him. Gregory’s effectiveness in writing causes the audience to feel an emotional attachment which allows them to better understand the purpose of the narrative.