Introduction
In the essay, "Am I Blue?" Alice Walker, who is a black woman uses her writing to show the nature of black man slavery, unfair treatment of women in the society as well as unfair treatment of animals. To achieve this, she tells a story of a horse called "Blue", which belongs to a neighbor and apparently, it is not treated well. The essay appears to be argumentative in nature as it tries to achieve the purpose of changing the reader's mind. She does this by pointing out the rights of the animals as well as the brutality that comes as a result of slavery. At one point, he compares her eyes to those of blue in the event that her partner had been born or sold into slavery.
Attracting the Reader's Attention
The first thing that Walker tries to do in her essay is to try and attract her readers. In the first two paragraphs, she does this successfully by describing the small house which is in a very beautiful place. Just happens to be a good narration technique because the rest of the essay is full of her angry tone which is deeply concerned with the rights of the animals as well as black slavery. When you read the essay, the first impression is that Walker just wants to display her literary work. However, you later discover that her primary concern and intention is aimed at persuading the reader to be mindful of animals. She does this by making the reader guilty of the things that are considered normal. In order to give the reader some time to think about those rights, she occasionally changes her tone throughout the essay. According to her, there happen to be some human qualities in animals. For that matter, she tries hard to persuade the reader into believing it. Her efforts are seen because she is using both emotional and rational appeals. At some point, she claims that she had forgotten that human animals and nonhuman animals can communicate very well.
Oppression and Animal Rights
Looking closely, it is clear that Alice Walker essay, 'Am I Blue' is against oppression in general. She only brings it clear to the reader by expressing animal rights. So, in general, she wants to change the way readers think about human as well as nonhuman animals. She shows the reality of how some people, (In this case black people) are treated unfairly to the extent that they are enslaved. To show us the readers that some people are considered inferior and therefore oppressed, Walker makes a comparison between marginalized humans and animals. She clearly writes about how European settlers treated Native Americans like animals since they considered them to be animals. But the settlers not being able to see beyond their oppressive nature didn't see how harmful that treatment was. For that matter, Alice Walker writes with an aim of changing the mind of her reader about all this scenario. According to her, this may be a way of reclaiming humanity.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Walker shows that social relations that are considered natural come from injustices of the past. Even though they are considered to be inevitable, they can be stopped by the resolve to do the right thing at all times. The resolve to do the right thing is seen when Walker sits to have a steak with a friend but after remembering the Blue's fate, she spits them out of her mouth.
