Letter To Author

Your Name

Instructor Name

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Letter to Author

Dear Ms. Angelou,

I am writing you after reading your essay ‘Graduation.’ Graduation is a wonderful experience in any student’s life. I have also experienced the mixed feelings of excitement, pride, and emotional outburst when I graduated. Your essay is an amazing narrative of your 8th grade graduation. I am writing to you today as a student and someone who has felt your words by heart and I praise you for your creativity to make this essay inspirational and worth reading. On the graduation ceremony, everybody is happy and supportive until Mr. Donleavy comes to the stage and starts showing his racial segregation towards the African-Americans. I can feel how you began to lose confidence and your ideas and thought grew dark, until Henry Reed appeared on the stage and began singing the National Anthem of Negros, which restored your faith and confidence.

A feeling of hope and excitement is aroused while reading the story but soon it is spoiled by the human prejudices, shown by you. A rainbow of all the mood changes that you undergo throughout the story are significantly described. The use of powerful words and phrases for describing the inequality in 1940s Stamps, Arkansas. The use of two different tones has evoked my feelings. Referring to the ceremony at the start as you have stated, “The children in Stamps trembled visibly with anticipation. Some adults were excited too, but to be certain, the whole young population had come down with graduation epidemic.” The thrill and joy of being graduated and moving on to the new opportunities are exemplified beautifully. The tone completely shifts to an opposite direction in the middle of the essay. The appearance of the two white politicians on the stage changes the whole atmosphere of the ceremony. Your words described the racist attitude of the politician, “The man’s dead words fell like brinks around the auditorium and too many fell in my belly.” However, towards the end of the essay, the tone is shifted back to being joyful and hopeful. The singing of the Negro National Anthem created a sense of unity among the community and feelings of being optimistic in the people. The deep message that you conveyed to your readers about racism in that society is a clear illustration of the priorities of society.

The three moods i.e. before graduation, during the ceremony of graduation, and after graduation are explained in the essay. The tone before graduation is excited and joyous. You are nervous and uneasy as you state, “White folks would attend the ceremony, and two or three would speak of God and home, and the Southern way of life, and Mrs. Parsons, the principal’s wife, would play the graduation march while the lower-grade graduates paraded down the aisle and took their seats below the platform.” During the ceremony, the feelings of anger arouse in you when you listen to the speech of the white politician. He says, “The Dutch children should all stumble in their wooden shoes and break their necks. The French should choke to death on the Louisiana Purchase while silkworms ate all the Chinese with their stupid pigtails.” Your tone once again changes after the address of Reed and you state, “We were on top again. As always, again. We survived. The depths had been icy and dark, but now a bright sun spoke to our souls.” Your elaborate account of the graduation ceremony reminded me of my graduation. That was the most meaningful and exciting day of my life. My friends and other fellows were also joyful. Their faces were glowing with happiness. Our experiences are relatable in the way that you gave up on self-acceptance after hearing the racist remarks of the politician but after the address of Henry Reed, you regained your confidence. Similarly, in my fatalism, somewhere God allowed me to be one among this population who has the opportunity to walk upon the stage in the auditorium and have the rewards. The details that you provided in the essay comparing the white and black schools is a depiction of white people’s attitudes towards the black community. The black schools were known as “training schools” as the whites believed that the blacks were not worthy of getting real education. Your message that: ‘whatever the color of the skin of a person is, he/she should not be allowed to insult any other person’ is a powerful message. This thought provoking and emotional essay gives a clear image of the reality of racism and the lack of importance that the blacks faced in the American society. The entire paragraph dedicated to the dress prepared by your mother for the ceremony made me emotional. It made me look into the significance and believability of that moment. I related to several things in your essay such as your success and optimism to overcome the hurdles that may arise in the life experience ahead. I was also super excited to walk on the stage and show my achievement to everyone like you. Excitement, disappointment, and redemption are the three major emotions that you stated you experienced, so did I. The storytelling technique that you have used made me feel like I am really a part of that ceremony and I totally understood your feelings. You shared your intimate emotions trying to pull the readers into your mind as you state, “It was awful to be a Negro and have no control over life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense. We should all be dead.” This essay shows that anybody can be successful no matter what his skin color is. The flowing sentences that you have used create a delightful imagery of the humans facing the racial discrimination. Henry Reed’s speech was also one of the memorable parts of that day. It was a positive message to the Negros and he was successful in restoring and raising the spirits of the graduating students. I really like the effort that you have put in your work to show that blacks are actually human beings- humans with the same desires, dreams and fears. As I was reading the graphic and well-expressed style of the essay, I felt a sense of joy, warm-heartedness as graduation is a wonderful experience of life, and it is a life-changing event. More excitement and encouragement are added when you receive gifts from others on your academic success. Through your interesting essay, I am impressed that you are proud to be an African-American. Even if your race suffered, it continued to be happy and contented with the opportunities it was provided. I can understand that the day of your graduation would be the happiest day of your life but it had been spoiled and made ugly by the racist remarks of the whites. You have structured your essay in such a way that it clearly shows how both good and bad experiences helped you to understand yourself and accept the way you are. I have learned a lot from your piece of writing and I expect that whoever reads it gets to learn something and creates a positive path for himself in life.

Sincerely,

Your Name.