How does hurston define race

While for postwar white America, Arvay may have seemed a kind of Cinderella figure, rescued from poverty and sexual frustration by Prince Charming, Hurston gives us a quite critical view of life on a pedestal.

This demand that Nature and women serve him, as his last name ironically suggests, is also played out in his development of the swamp, his final most grandiose and profitable financial scheme. Seeing its richness only in material terms, he dreams throughout the book of extracting the wealth from it. Toward the end of the novel, Jim achieves his goal, drains the swamp, and creates the model housing development of the future, laid out with fine homes, golf links, and a club house.

The original line of the swamp gave accent like a railroad track. Like Arvay, in fact, the Black characters are domesticated and diminished, stunted as the name of one shipmate — Stumpy — graphically suggests. Just as Arvay is, in many ways, a servant in her relationship to Jim, Black men are consistently feminized in their relationship with him, not merely subservient but also forced into serving traditional female functions emotional mothering and cooking, for instance in the absence of white women.

The damaging effects on Black people living in a white world are outlined in the changes that occur in the relationship of the two main Black characters in the novel, Joe and Dessie. Even though Jim sees his role as one of benevolent protector of Blacks a role Joe never disputes , the money Joe receives from Jim cuts him off from his roots and finally ruins his life.

Her life itself is another political lesson. The control exercised by whites over her writing, the way in which she was therefore forced to mask many of her criticisms and to make her points indirectly, speak to the racism and sexism she labored under throughout her life. Something is terribly wrong — and perhaps not simply with Hurston — when a Black woman with the insight into various kinds of oppression that Hurston demonstrated finds no place for herself in progressive politics.

Perhaps her evaluation can help us in working with people who, like her, see things along radical lines but who have no history of working in leftist organizations. Ever ready to lampoon pomposity and circumlocution wherever she saw it, whether amongst whites or upwardly mobile Blacks, Hurston also saw a lack of vitality and mind-numbing jargon in the Communist Party that would have turned her off no matter how accurate the analysis.

In fact, what Hurston implicitly called for in this article foreshadows what many contemporary radical Black feminists demand: a flexible, multi-level analysis of oppression spoken in the language of real human beings. Bontemps, Arna. Hurston, Zora Neale. Dust Tracks on a Road. Second edition. Edited and with an introduction by Robert E.

Seraph on the Suwanee. Reprinted with an introduction by Hazel V. New York: Harper Collins, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Reprinted, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, Walker, Alice, ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Skip to content Against the Current, No. Works Cited Bontemps, Arna. Hughes, Langston. The Big Sea: An Autobiography. New York: Hill and Wang, Preece, Harold.

Hurston makes it clear that her audience is no one in particular, rather anyone who cares to hear what she has to say. Following the conventions of description, Hurston employs colorful diction, imagery, and figurative language to take the reader on this journey. Hurston is a person I would like to meet, not to discuss her experiences as a colored woman but to converse with and have as a friend. Answer: The point Hurston is trying to make is through humor, showing the black people as part of the society of the United States.

At the age of 13, Hurston goes to Jack- sonville to attend school, where she discovers that she is a colored girl. Perhaps that is how the Great Stuffer of Bags filled them in the first place—who knows? Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel. Research Paper. Ben Davis June 1, How does Hurston feel about being colored?

How does it feel to be colored me first paragraph? How does it feel to be Colored Me message? What is the new world cabaret? What does it mean to be tragically colored? Previous Article How do police investigate a missing person? Social studies. Ben Davis March 8, What does it feel like to be Colored Me? Struggling with distance learning? Themes All Themes. Symbols All Symbols. Theme Wheel. Everything you need for every book you read.

The way the content is organized and presented is seamlessly smooth, innovative, and comprehensive. Themes and Colors. LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in How it Feels to be Colored Me , which you can use to track the themes throughout the work. Related Themes from Other Texts. Compare and contrast themes from other texts to this theme…. Find Related Themes. How often theme appears:. How It Feels to B Related Characters: Zora Neale Hurston speaker. Related Themes: Race and Difference.

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