Compare And Contrast Approaches To The Harlem Renaissance

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DIFFERENT APPROACHES OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE: HUGHES & HURTSON
Deshawntray Coleman
Rochester College
Different approaches to the Harlem Renaissance When looking at the Harlem Renaissance, readers can expect to discover many artists that pushed the exposure of Jazz, Blues, and African American literature to the American mainstream during the 1920’s – 1930’s. Langston Hughes is associated with the Harlem Renaissance for his literary works and activism. Zora Neale Hurtson, was also a writer associated with the Harlem Renaissance, her works are, to say the least are in contrast to Hughes’s work. I reason that the different styles of writing and thinking, that were contributed to the Harlem Renaissance is in regards to both author’s upbringing/childhood experiences. The two literary compositions that I will be reviewing are I, Too by Langston Hughes, (The Norton Anthology …show more content…

She explains how she feels in regards to the color of her skin; she states, “She’s not tragically colored” (The Norton Anthology American Literature, 2013, p. 9, I reason that this is in regards to where she grew up at. Zora grew up in Eatonville, Florida, a town governed by black people; she only saw white people as they passed threw the town heading into another town. Zora states, “I do not always feel colored. Even now I often achieved the unconscious Zora of Eatonville before the Hegira. I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background.” (The Norton Anthology American Literature, 2013, p. 942) This passage is in regards to her growing up in an all-black town of three hundred people, furthermore, her feeling the most colored only when she’s around all white people and being the only black person. As a child, she sang and danced for her neighbors and when white people were traveling threw she would wave and

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