Richard Wright 's Criticism Of Their Eyes Were Watching God, And The Library Card

It is strange that two of the most prominent artists of the Harlem Renaissance could ever disagree as much as or be as different as Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright. Despite the fact that they are the same color and lived during the same time period, they do not have much else in common. On the one hand is Hurston, a female writer who indulges in black art and culture and creates subtle messages throughout her most famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. On the other hand is Wright, who is a male writer who demonstrates that whites do not like black people, nor will they ever except for when they are in the condition “…America likes to see the Negro live: between laughter and tears.” Hurston was also a less political writer than

The poem “Between the World and Me” by Richard Wright reanimates the horrible scene of a racial lynching and forces the reader to endure the victim's pain through the first person’s narrative voice. The poem contains structured lines and visual division into three stanzas. Moreover, there is one more type of division in the poem. The author uses an ellipsis four times throughout the poem. This punctuation mark frames the poem into the timeline, where the historical past of the African American poet becomes the present experience of any human, despite the race. The climax of the poem is presented in the middle of stanza two. The animated moment, which starts from the sentence “the ground gripped my feet”, dramatically shifts the

Society has always thought of racism as a war given to the lowly African American from the supposedly high class white man, but no one thought there would be prejudice within a hierarchical class system inside the black community. However within that class system, history has shown that darker colored women are at the deep trenches of the totem pole. In the novel, “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” African American women are put under harm and control exposing the racism and sexism with their community. Through the life of Janie Crawford, Zora Neale Hurston portrays the concept of a woman finding her independence in a black, hierarchical, and racist society.

In Claire Crabtree’s journal article, “The Confluence of Folklore, Feminism and Black Self-Determination in Zora Neal Hurston’s ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God’”, it addresses the large role that folklore plays regarding Janie’s growth as a character. Moreover, it states how the influence of Folklore culture shaped Janie’s experiences as a Black woman in the South. Initially, Crabtree described the integration of folk material and how it developed Janie’s journey of identity. Folklore culture affected Janie’s perception in relationships, career aspirations, and her limited role as a woman. Nevertheless, Crabtree explains how folklore is merged to the themes of feminism and Black self-determination. Moreover, she discusses how the style of narration and the novel’s unique storytelling frame amplifies the authentic aspect of the text. She

Richard Wright and Alain Locke’s critique on Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God reveal the common notion held by many of the time, and still today, that there is a right and wrong way for a black person to talk and to act. Wright’s point of view of clearly racially charged and coming from a place of ignorance and intolerance. While, Locke’s point is simply due to a lack of an ability to think out of the box and observe deeper meaning, perhaps due to internalized oppression and a fearful desire to talk and act just like a white man in order to be taken seriously. Wright’s argument that the novel has no central theme and is parallel to minstrel shows, and Locke’s belief that Hurston uses relatable language to avoid diving into mature writing, are inherently wrong and fueled by the very issues Hurston was trying to combat: racism and sexism.

The memoir “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston, was first published in 1928, and recounts the situation of racial discrimination and prejudice at the time in the United States. The author was born into an all-black community, but was later sent to a boarding school in Jacksonville, where she experienced “race” for the first time. Hurston not only informs the reader how she managed to stay true to herself and her race, but also inspires the reader to abandon any form of racism in their life. Especially by including Humor, Imagery, and Metaphors, the author makes her message very clear: Everyone is equal.

The book Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a poignant reminder that the battle for equality is still ongoing for African Americans, and that the average black reality is rife with perils, which could easily lead to the destruction of life or liberty. In the wake of the recent string of deaths involving unarmed African American citizens by the hands of local law enforcement, Coates presents his narrative in the style of a letter to his son. Writing in the form of a letter offers a deeper sense of intimacy both with its perceived intended subject (Coates’s son) and the reader. The intimacy expressed through this narrative style denotes Coates’s own intense emotions to the reader regarding race in America. In this way, Coates offers a view that is authentic, humanistic, and emotionally charged contrary to just being an omniscient narrator.

“Whenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books.” –Richard Wright, Black Boy. The author suffered and lived through an isolated society, where books were the only option for him to escape the reality of the world. Wright wrote this fictionalized book about his childhood and adulthood to portray the dark and cruel civilization and to illustrate the difficulties that blacks had, living in a world run by whites.

Both Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes were great writers but their attitudes towards their personal experience as an African American differed in many ways. These differences can be attributed to various reasons that range from gender to life experience but even though they had different perceptions regarding the African American experience, they both shared one common goal, racial equality through art. To accurately delve into the minds of the writers’ one must first consider authors background such as their childhood experience, education, as well their early adulthood to truly understand how it affected their writing in terms the similarities and

Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God further demonstrates the author’s perspective of colored women. The main

"Whenever I thought of the essential bleakness of black life in America, I knew that Negroes had never been allowed to catch the full spirit of Western civilization, that they lived somehow in it but not of it. And when I brooded upon the cultural barrenness of black life, I wondered if clean, positive tenderness, love, honor, loyalty, and the capacity to remember were native with man. I asked myself if these human qualities were not fostered, won, struggled and suffered for, preserved in ritual from one generation to another." This passage written in Black Boy, the autobiography of Richard Wright shows the disadvantages of Black people in the 1930's. A man of many words, Richard Wrights is the father of the modern

In the short story “Drenched in Light” by Zora Neale Hurston, the author appeals to a broad audience by disguising ethnology and an underlying theme of gender, race, and oppression with an ambiguous tale of a young black girl and the appreciation she receives from white people. Often writing to a double audience, Hurston had a keen ability to appeal to white and black readers in a clever way. “[Hurston] knew her white folks well and performed her minstrel shows tongue in cheek” (Meisenhelder 2). Originally published in The Opportunity in 1924, “Drenched in Light” was Hurston’s first story to a national audience.

To briefly state, Hurston is often recognized for her critically acclaimed novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. She was born on January 7, 1981, in the small town of Notasulga, Alabama. During those times being an African American woman was difficult and often she faced many prejudice barriers because “African-American women were faced with unfair treatment that limited their opportunities.” Yet she defied the odds and became a renowned published author. Hurston is the perfect example of someone who had many obstacles standing in her way but overcame them to reach her goals. Thus, Hurston life may be analyzed through her early years, writing career, and her dying legacy.

Richard Wright’s Blueprint for Negro Writing uses criticism to aid in promoting the success of African-American writers. He did this because of how he viewed the literature standards and works of the writers

Since Richard exited his mother’s womb, he had to undergo bigotry and unseen detestation from white southerners because of his color (Hart 35). Starting his first day of life on September 4, 1908, Richard Wright overcame several impediments and later became one of the first famous African-American authors. The Wright family lived in Natchez, Mississippi, and his parents worked, during his toddler years. Nathaniel Wright, Richard’s father, was a sharecropper. He labored for the rich plantation owners, while Richard’s mother was a school teacher. (Shuman 1697)Because of the constant beatings, Wright was obedient to all types of authority but anxiety and distrust formed in his mind. Richard unintentionally set his grandparents’ house