In the beginning of the novel, Leah is a young Christian, American girl who looks up to her father, Nathan Price. Leah looks up to her father, describing him as “having a heart as large as his hands. And his wisdom is great” (42). This shows how much respect Leah has for her father. She puts her father on a high pedestal as he “understands everything” (66). She does not talk back or say one bad thing about her father that would bring him down from that pedestal in the first part of the novel. Leah “[hasn’t] contradicted [her] father on any subject, ever” (66). This shows that, to her, he is all knowing and will alway know what is best. Due to the fact that Leah holds her father in such high regard, she is always trying to do things well enough to “suit” her father (37). Leah believes that at the age of fifteen, she “must think about maturing into a Christian lady” in order to gain Nathan’s approval (103). Leah also holds a strong faith in God which may stem from the pursuit of her father’s approval. She has
With the increased technology of today’s world, cultures collide constantly, and these interactions can either have positive results of a blended culture, or negative results of horrible tragedies and acts of violence. However, this trade of cultural ideas has been occurring for several thousand years, all over the world. The novel, Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, is a breathtaking novel about the struggles of the African tribe of Umuofia to change their lifestyle to comply to that of a powerful group of white foreigners that invade their land. The collision of cultures is adapted to by some better than others, and the novel seamlessly conveys the results of each response to the newcomers, as
The essence of a location is often embodied in the traits and traditions that it’s people hold dear. The term “local color” summarizes this concept very well and it explains that “the customs, manner of speech, dress, or other typical features of a place or period that contribute to its particular character.” This idea is prevalent in many author’s writing and can help humanize and bring to life the scene that the story takes place in. Zora Neale Hurston uses local color in her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. This book describes the life of a young woman Janie and her journey throughout Florida and the lessons and life experiences she gained while visiting these diverse places. The idea of local color can be found in the three locations
This article is a curtain raiser of a self, ofan African American voice which lays bare the multiple voices buried deep into the conscience. The study of Dust Tracks on a Road – an autobiography of Zora Neale Hurston, affords an insight into the life of black women of the twenty first century. Zora Neale Hurston’s autobiography has been denounced as shallow and dishonest. However, a close reading of the text in terms of its narrative strategies and persona links the work to the African American continuum. It argues that a distinct woman’s voice must be heard in order to understand how the female experience may be different from the dominant male tradition, but, equally authentic. Her attempt to voice the voicelessness of black women has focussed on the question of the mercury identity of the postcolonial writer of the modern era. Her autobiography
Charleston writer DuBose Heyward is famous for his literary illustrations of Charleston, South Carolina. His poem “Dusk” is no exception. “Dusk” creates an iconic image of Charleston, captivating the emotion and aesthetic of one of the oldest cities in the South.
Zora Neale Hurston’s 1930 novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, illustrates the importance of storytelling in a community. Daily, the people of the all-black town of Eatonville sit around their porches and tell stories. Speech is used as a symbol of liberation for the citizens, as it allows them to speak their mind by fabricating their own stories while learning from others’ tales. A way of life stems from this routine that defines both the town and the people living in it. Storytelling allows the people of Eatonville to construct their own culture.
Chapter 19 begins with Pao Yu’s secret visit to his maid’s, Aroma, home. Aroma, who knows how to pull at Pao-Yu’s heart strings, tells Pao-Yu that her family is playing to but her back. Pao’ Yu’s deep affection for Aroma causes him to be deeply saddened upon hearing this news. Aroma states that she will demand to remain with Pao-Yu and his family under three conditions. 1. He will stop telling sarcastic jokes about studying. 2. He will stop speaking without thinking first. 3. Pao-Yu has to stop playing with things meant for girls.
“Toronto existing in layers” (Mandel) and such is the impression of Miranda as she ventures once more into the vast city of Toronto, after her time in New York. Upon her arrival in the city, a pang of nostalgia hits her as she reminisces her first arrival: “she’d always liked the descent into this city, the crowded towers by the lakeshore, the way an infinite ocean of suburbia rushed inward and came to a point at the apex of the CN Tower…the city had shocked her with its vastness when she’d arrived…” (Mandel). Such descriptions might appear as mere imageries of the city, for these are common sights—the crowded city, the suburbs, and the CN--one can see when travelling into the city of Toronto. It is a familiar setting and something that is
Zora Neale Hurston’s highly acclaimed novel Their Eyes Were Watching God demonstrates many of the writing techniques described in How to Read Literature like a Professor by Tomas C. Foster. In Foster’s book, he describes multiple reading and writing techniques that are often used in literature allowing the reader to better understand the deeper meaning of a text. These styles of writing are very prevalent in Hurston’s novel. Her book follows the heart wrenching story of an African American woman named Janie as she struggles in her pursuit of finding love. Hurston is able to communicate Janie’s great quest for love through the use of a vampire character, detailed geography, and sexual symbolism; all of which are described in Foster’s book.
As once stated by Italio Calvino, “You take delight not in a city's seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours.” By what they behold, every city offers answers. However, that does not mean these answers are always accurate. Residing in South Florida, Eatonville and the Everglades contrast each other not only by the visual contents, but also the answers given to the self-actualizing questions of the protagonist, Janie Crawford. These answers, defining what the towns represent, utterly differ. Though commonly overlooked, these cities essentially contribute to Janie’s discovering of herself. The two focal settings in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Eatonville and the Glades, eagerly display
Morrison expresses how isolation forms within the middle class black neighborhood as they cling on to systematic racist views. Morrison, once again, contrasts between the outer beauty of the neighborhoods to the inner incentives of the middle class African Americans. In these neighborhoods, there are “hollyhocks” that are “narrow,
Sankofa, a movie by Haile Gerima revolves around the horrors of slavery, revealing the humiliating and torturous experiences people from the African Diaspora had to go through during the Atlantic slave trade period. A film based in Ghana, where the slave trade was rampant for centuries, it highlights the savagery of white people and how internalized the oppression was for the Africans through poetic descriptions of complacency and fear. While there are many other films based on slavery, what sets Sankofa apart is the journey of the characters and their transformation. I believe that the larger theme in the movie is the discovery and preservation of one 's identity; finding courage, defeating fear and seeking liberation, and most importantly,
Everyone as a human being has experienced some form of change in our life, big or small, and it has a lasting effect on who they are and how they act. In Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’, change is a forward facing theme of the whole story, we see change in all forms occur throughout the book; the arrival of the white men and their changing of the igbo culture, the tearing apart of Okonkwo’s family by religion and traditions, and the change that occurs within Okonkwo himself when he realizes he cannot prevent change from happening in the community and culture he loved. Change is destructive in ‘Things Fall Apart’, especially to such a magnitude as we see in the story, it is destructive to communities, to families, and especially to individuals.
My humble home, tucked within our modest suburb, is brimming with East African culture. The scents of freshly fried chapos permeate through my bedroom walls, plastered with cloth paintings from Kenya and South Sudan.The sound of Kiswahili, the fresh chai burning my tongue, these sensations are my comfort. I am an East African, by blood and by heritage. Dark, ebony skin and lean legs that extend for miles mark me as a typical South Sudanese girl. Broad-shouldered, my build and strong will are the trademarks of the Kikuyu, the tribe our family line descends from.
Those who knew me about 5 or 6 years ago would know that I was a pretty fat kid. Shopping for clothes was never a problem though, because I could always just go into men’s sizes. For some African migrants in England in the 80s however, shopping in their size proved to be quite difficult. Good morning all, and welcome to the State Library’s poetry exhibition. Today I’m going to discuss how life is difficult for migrants, particularly large ones, who are made to feel marginalised by society – not just for their obesity, but for their race or skin colour too. Grace Nichols is a Guyanese-British poet who migrated to the UK in 1977, when she was 27. Her poetry has been central in helping us understand the cultural Caribbean-British connection for over thirty years. One of these poems is The Fat Black Woman Goes Shopping, which was published in 1984. During the 80s in London, there were riots over racial issues such as the ones at Brixton and Tottenham, which in part motivated Nichols to write this poem about