Summary Of Drenched In Light By Zora Neale Hurston

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In “Drenched in Light” by Zora Neale Hurston, it has elements of being too minstrelsy for the Harlem Renaissance, which I agree with. The little girl, Isis, has a personality that hooks readers into the story. Everything about Isis is a way to keep the readers and everyone included in the story captivated. Some people would disagree by saying, Hurston wrote “Drenched in Light” the way she did to satisfy the imagination of the white person. People said, Hurston’s intention for her stories was to get the white people to go away so she can continue writing about her own expressive identity/voice. Minstrelsy was an exploitative form of musical theater that exaggerated real-life black circumstances and reinforced dangerous stereotypes during the 19th and 20th centuries (“History of Minstrelsy” – USF). According to that definition, minstrelsy was essentially a method for white people to use the African-American’s and their lives as entertainment, which is Isis’s sole purpose in this story.
Isis becomes powerless over her thoughts and motions when music begins to play. According to the texts, “Music to Isis meant motion. In a minute razor and whipping forgotten, she was doing a fair imitation of a Spanish dancer she had seen in a medicine show sometime before” (Hurston 171). The first sentence of that quote shows that anytime Isis hears music playing her mind goes blank and she starts to move. As soon as, music plays it means Isis must dance like it was programmed into her by

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