The Case for Reparations

The Case for Reparations Literary Elements

Genre

Nonfiction Essay

Setting and Context

United States, specifically Chicago

Narrator and Point of View

Ta-Nehisi Coates, speaking from a first-person point of view

Tone and Mood

Serious, thought-provoking, critical

Protagonist and Antagonist

Major Conflict

The central conflict in this piece is between the institutions that fuel racism in the United States and the African-American community

Climax

Foreshadowing

Understatement

Allusions

Coates uses historical, biblical, and political theory references to support his arguments about reparations.

Imagery

Through multiple anecdotes, Coates illustrates how the US creates an image of its past that is not accurate.

Paradox

The essay is built around a fundamental paradox of American history: that the nation's highest ideals of individual freedom were built on a system of slavery, which denied that freedom to an entire group.

Parallelism

Coates draws parallels between different periods of time in African American history to show that the exploitation of Black people is something that occurs throughout America's existence.

Metonymy and Synecdoche

Chicago, in particular, North Lawndale, serves to represent the flaws with housing in the United States; similarly, housing injustice represents all of the injustices done to African Americans in this piece

Personification

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