Hurston SOAPSTone Example:

Speaker / Identify the voice (narrator) and the point of view from which he or she is speaking. Identify the speaker’s values, biases, and beliefs (if you are able). Determine if the speaker can be trusted / Zora Neale Hurston, African American writer, expresses herself through the first person as a woman at first not aware of her color, and now, affected by her perception more strongly at times. Hurston’s biases are revealed to be against not only those who choose not to associate with her based on her skin color, but also against African Americans who feel resentment over slavery and continued prejudice.
Occasion / What is the time and place? Is there a particular historical context that influences the message or the speaker? What specific set of circumstances prompted the writer to write? / Hurston’s work was published in 1928 during the Harlem Renaissance, with specific references made to its characteristics, including the popularity of Jazz music, used as a metaphor to highlight her attitude toward being aware of racial differences.
Audience / Who will hear or read this message? What are this audience’s biases or values? Is this audience open to the message? / The United States and herself. She remarks on the biases of potential audience members (“the sobbing school of Negrohood”) who will likely disapprove of her willingness to so easily forget past injustices and even hints at feeling sorry for White people.
Purpose / What does this speaker hope to achieve? What is the main purpose (argument)? / To inform the audience about what it means to be “colored”. Also, as a mantra to herself about who she is, a woman, at times feeling no racial identity. Hurston expresses a form of pride, showing herself as a woman who is too consumed with what the world holds in store for her to be affected by what the world withheld from her ancestors.
Subject / What is this work about? / Being “colored” in the U.S. Finding an identity that encompasses compassion, hope, and pride.
Tone / What is the dominant tone and what is its effect? Look primarily at the speaker’s attitude. What words, images, or figures of speech reveal the speaker’s attitude? Are there any shifts in tone within this document, and if so, what is the result/effect? / Hurston employs humor in a conversational tone to express her rise from a self-confident young girl to a teenager abruptly confronted with an awareness of racial differences to her rise as an independent, and once more self-confident woman. Her words and humorous attacks reveal an unapologetic spirit and bold character who loves to live life large.