Rhetorical Analysis of "Shame" by Dick Gregory

Dick Gregory in his essay “Shame” clearly shows that poverty brings forth many hardships as well as a great deal of shame. Gregory, shows the hardships he faces by appealing to the reader's emotions, showing a strong sense of imagery, and a using a figurative word choice.

Gregory, by descriptively showing what he had to go through everyday to impress a young lady named Helene Tucker, tugs on the strings of the reader's heart. Gregory in paragraph 1 lines 2-14 states “ I was in love with Helene Tucker… I went to school mostly to look at her… if the pipes were frozen I would run over to Mr. Ben’s store and stick my pot into the soda machine and wait for the ice to melt so I can wash my shirt… I would wear that shirt wet or dry because it was the only shirt I had.” These lines are quite emotional in the sense that many people cannot imagine how hard it must be to live the way Gregory lived. Gregory is seen getting sick in the winter just to explain Helene Tucker. Gregory in the following paragraph states “Everybody’s got a Helene Tucker, a symbol of everything you want.” Gregory had truly loved this girl and would do anything to impress, he would show himself as a well kept young man, when in reality he was not.

The imagery Gregory uses throughout the story truly shows how he is ashamed of himself for being in poverty. One key part of the story that shows very detailed imagery, it was “Negro payday”. This was a day in Gregory’s school where fathers of the students would donate certain amounts of money, which could be sent to the impoverished. Gregory wanted to impress Helene Tucker by stating his father will donate more money than hers, there was only one problem, Gregory did not have a father to donate money and his teacher knew it. In the essay Gregory writes “You forgot me… my daddy said he’d give $15. Richard we are collecting money for you and your kind.” In the following paragraphs after that statement made by the teacher, the reader can imagine the struggles Gregory went through using such descriptive language. For example, after he was humiliated after being told the money was for him and his kind Gregory believes “there was shame everywhere.” Gregory follows this statement with a few scenarios to prove how shameful he is some scenarios include “there was shame going to the Worthy boys annual christmas dinner, there was shame wearing the brown and orange mackinaw the welfare gave to 3,ooo boys.” Gregory shows the reader what living in poverty is really like and the challenges that come with it.

Gregory tends to use figurative language to emphasize the shame he constantly feels when people point out how impoverished he is. When he is humiliated in front of his class by his teacher he uses a hyperbole that describes that moment. Gregory says “Now there was shame everywhere. It seemed like the whole world had been inside that classroom, everyone had heard what the teacher had said.” The statement (“the whole world had been inside that classroom”) is considered a hyperbole a good device when figuratively describing an event. The whole world was not in that classroom, but Helene Tucker was in this classroom. The teacher had humiliated him in front of the only person who he worked hard for everyday to impress. After that comment all of Gregory’s classmates are sad for him.

Gregory uses the word shame to explain the roughness of his childhood and how he put aside his struggles for happiness out for the love of a girl. Gregory is not ashamed of who he is, instead Gregory is ashamed of the way society views him. Society views Gregory and “his kind” perhaps as beggars rather than choosers. Gregory lives his life to the fullest for to impress Helene Tucker, however the world sees Gregory as a struggling child who needs other people's help to live comfortably in this world.