Samantha Trujillo

Mrs. Babcock
Re-written Fourth of July

Within Lordes narrative Fourth of July expressing her aggrieved emotions

towards those who feel acceptable to discriminate and are prejudice, Lorde shifts
from the excitement of her childhood family trip to Washington, D.C to being
disgusted by the inequality proceeding in America which she realized was the new
and crushing reality (P7) of what America truly was.
Throughout Lordes excerpt she is able to clearly express her thoughts on
discrimination in American by utilizing different methods of diction. She is able to
her recall an incident from her childhood when her family visited Washington D.C.
This innocent caused her to be aware of the society she was growing up in. Through
her repetition and details she is able to captures the audiences attention on
discrimination and how it is wrong to take part in it. Lorde is able to express how
Washington D.C looked like by expressing the color associated with it. The word
white is continuously repeated over and over again in her essay. Washington D.C
was supposed to be the capital of freedom and truth but all that surrounded her was
discrimination. Lorde associated the color white with the discrimination her and her
family faced. In paragraph 20, Lorde describes an event that happen to her, and
her family while she was in Washington D.C. She states The waitresswhite
counter..white..ice-cream..whitewhite heatwhite..pavement..white stone

monumentsmade me sick to my stomach.. in order to express to her audience

that she experienced racism all around. The audience can also tell that Lorde was
disgusted by the events that occurred in Washington D.C. The color imagery she
uses in the text grabs the audiences attention by her describing the color of the
different attractions in Washington, D.C such as the monuments. She is also able to
persuade her readers that discrimination is wrong because went through it. This
allows for the audience to get a clear picture of the end result of what shes left
with, which is the whiteness. At the end of her Washington D.C trip she was left with
the impression that the fable capital was nothing but a joke because of racism in
Washington D.C. In addition to Audre Lorde also includes epiphora as well. The
repetition of the word white at the end of each successive clause illustrates an
epiphora. By Lorde doing this she emphasizes the color imagery conveying in her
piece. Lorde also describes the light and heat were so much stronger in
Washington, D.C, than Back home in New York City...(Line 12-13) to express that
the tensions and discrimination were higher in Washington D.C then at her home.
Lorde figured since Washington D.C is known for freedom it would be better than
her home but she goes there and the color is brighter and the heat is more. The
audience can tell from this quote that Washington D.C was nothing compared to
what people believe it to be. This aids to people taking being persuade that
discrimination is wrong.
If Lorde did not find the audacity to voice her experiences of racism then
many people would still not fully understand the impact discrimination had on
families, individuals, and in communities, we as Americans would still not grasp the
whole picture of inequality. We need to be aware of the harsh realities faced in
society, so we can make practicable changes to humanitys future. By learning

through the narrators experiences and hardships in life people can gain knowledge
of what it felt like to feel mistreated and as a general species we can never make
the mistake of repeating history again or every discriminating a person or a group of
people.