Kaylyn Barta Mr. Hopkins AP English Literature March 9th, 2015 Hurston Does Not Need To Be Wright English theatre writer Kenneth Tynan once said, “A critic is a man who knows the way, but can’t drive the car.” Richard Wright seemed to fit the bill of this quote, as he judgmentally assessed the black literature produced by Zora Neale Hurston without substantiated endorsement. In his critique of her distinguished novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Wright voices an opinion of harsh disapproval;
Zora Neale Hurston said, “If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it”. Individuals spend a great amount of their life searching for their identity, and own voice. The journey may seem bleak as individuals search for it, but it is worth it. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God written by Zora Neale Hurston the protagonist, Janie spends the novel searching for her own identity and freedom. The search for her life takes many turns, as she goes through several marriages
Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God presents a female protagonist heroine named Janie. Her longing desire for love and quest to becoming an intelligent young black woman makes this novel one of Hurston’s greatest. The notion of body and sensuality in Hurston’s novel have always been critiqued by several perspectives. Helene Cixous French author of The Laugh of the Medusa, focuses solely on the hostility toward the patriarchal binaries. Cixous believes that feminine writing is connected
deaf ears. These readers felt that Hurston described an individual experience that reflected a more accurate picture of their daily lives, with all the emotional and personal complexities that came with being a black woman. This realism comes at no surprise, though; Their Eyes Were Watching God largely comes from Hurston’s own experiences with a long-time lover, Percival Punter, as the inspiration for Tea Cake. Eatonville directly correlates with a location Hurston lived in (with the same name!) and
Modernism entwined around the issues of gender, class, status, and absurdity of the time. The movement was a response to not only a national crisis, but also an overall international sensation of depression; some described it as the incapability to feel that anything at the time was reliable. Gender issues have always been a prominent topic of discussion throughout society, as well as literature, so naturally became a headlining focus of the modernist movement. Women, their capabilities, and their