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Cultural identity
Benefits and challenges associated with expression of cultural identity
Benefits and challenges associated with expression of cultural identity
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Dust Tracks on a Road: An Autobiography by Zora Neale Hurston Between Cape jasmine bushes and chinaberry trees, Zora Neale Hurston’s childhood, was a warm sweet memory illustrated in an extract of Dust Tracks on a Road: An Autobiography. In this excerpt, diction and point of view jump from the page to give the reader a lucid and realistic view of life “down there” in the farm, sheltered from society to protect the plentiful love, food and company of the Hurston home, compared to “way up north” where “rare” apples are abundant and gardenias are sold for a dollar, but where reality is a universal cry for equality and justice. Hurston’s juxtaposition of these two environments compliments her parents’ idealistic differences when it comes to raising their children. Metaphorical language, separation, position and repetition of words; flowers, fruit and struggle imagery create an atmosphere of home-like neighborhood versus the world outside the chinaberry trees. At the beginning of this piece, we are quickly introduced to the different lifestyles between the farm she lived in and the one she encountered when she left to New York. Easily distinguished is the contrast made by the use of the word “folks” when she mentions her relatives from “down under” but calls the New Yorkers “people.” The North is seen as a literature archetype as an unknown lucrative place, a strange place where “the flowers cost a dollar each.” This is positioned as a welcome mat to a world of differences betwe...
The novel’s use of contrast between East Egg, West Egg, and the Valley of Ashes begins to explore the differences between social classes. East Egg houses the most wealthy and aristocratic members of the nearby area. It contains many “white palaces” (Fitzgerald 10) that are quite “fashionable” (Fitzgerald 10). This description paints an image of purity and untouched standards of wealth that are translated into the book’s time period. Due to the pristineness of the village, the homes “[glitter] along the water,” (10) further supporting the idyllic qualities East Egg appears to have. West Egg, on the contrary, is home to people of near equal affluence, but of less social establishment. It is described by the narrator as “less fashionable,” (Fitzgerald
As a reader of the Zora Neale Hurston book; Dust Tracks on a road, I discovered many different significance of the title. Zora was a little black girl growing up in the 1900’s, where in that time period their where a lot of race riots. She never established that she was misused or treated poorly by whites. According to Zora she got the most love and gracious from whites. Due to that time period a color girl being civil with whites and getting treated nicely by whites was not usual. Zora father was the person in town who established all the rules, so Zora had to have this attitude and act presentable because who her father was. At the age of nine Zora lost somebody who was very much important to her (her mother). Growing up without a mother is rather difficult for a little black girl in that time period and can cause many emotions. Many may not understand but can make you want to live a strong life and give your all to do something. As a child a white man said these words to Zora “Do not be a nigger” (Hurston, 1900’s, p.x). Not meaning it as don’t be black, but meaning be more than the color of your skin. As Zora set out on big dreams and goals to not be just a nigger but to be more. So as you think about the title this road that Zora has made she has to gone down this dusty to be a better Zora and not just for herself but for everybody in her race to make them succeed.
Setting, including physical location and time, is essential for establishing the backgrounds and identities of characters in a piece. Even within countries like the United States, where English is the national language and spoken by almost everyone, regional influences on language exist. The way a character speaks and communicates is an important part of their personal identity as a character, as well as an expression of their regional and cultural background. In Zora Neale Hurston’s Sweat, the dialect of the South used by the characters is a ready example of the influence of culture on one’s language. The heavy influences of culture are apparent in many texts, and a change in time or location would alter the language and mannerisms of speech
Zora Neale Hurston was, the daughter of a Baptist minister and an educated scholar who still believed in the genius contained within the common southern black vernacular(Hook http://splavc.spjc.cc.fl.us/hooks/Zora.html). She was a woman who found her place, though unstable, in a typical male profession. Hurston was born on January 7, 1891 in Eatonville, Florida, the first all-incorporated black town in America. She found a special thing in this town, where she said, "... [I] grew like a like a gourd and yelled bass like a gator," (Gale, 1). When Hurston was thirteen she was removed from school and sent to care for her brother's children. She became a member of a traveling theater at the age of sixteen, and then found herself working as a maid for a white woman. This woman saw a spark that was waiting for fuel, so she arranged for Hurston to attend high school in Baltimore. She also attended Morgan Academy, now called Morgan State University, from which she graduated in June of 1918. She then enrolled in the Howard Prep School followed by later enrollment in Howard University. In 1928 Hurston attended Barnard College where she studied anthropology under Franz Boas. After she graduated, Zora returned to Eatonville to begin work on anthropology. Four years after Hurston received her B.A. from Barnard she enrolled in Columbia University to begin graduate work (Discovering Authors, 2-4). Hurston's life seemed to be going well but she was soon to see the other side of reality.
Narrator, this was a third person account, thus leaving much to the imagination. The conversation’s language was left as if truly taken from an African American speaker in the south in such a time. The way Hurston made the scenery appear before me was like a white sheet gets stained with red wine, unable to wash out of my mind. The narration was very brut in a grammatical manner, giving a wash bucket effect of never being settled.
Hurston begins the essay in her birth town: Eatonville, Florida; an exclusively Negro town where whites were a rarity, only occasionally passing by as a tourist. Hurston, sitting on her porch imagines it to be a theatre as she narrates her perspective of the passing white people. She finds a thin line separating the spectator from the viewer. Exchanging stances at will and whim. Her front porch becomes a metaphor for a theater seat and the passers
In the novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, by Zora Neale Hurston there were many contrasting places that were used to represent opposed forces or ideas that are central to the meaning of this work.
her own identity. Hurston’s narrative also focuses on the emergence of a female self in a
Zora Neale Hurston uses setting and tradition to further the reader’s understanding of African American culture and the characters in “The Gilded Six-Bits.” The setting in “The Gilded Six-Bits” is “a Negro yard around a Negro house in a Negro settlement...” (Hurston). By placing this story in an all-Negro settlement, Hurston emphasizes the importance of community and unity during a time of segregation and racial tension. This community, known as a “race colony,” was “one of the voluntarily segregated communities meant to empower its black citizens and prove to the surrounding white world that blacks were capable of self-government, independence, integrity, and indigenous forms of expression.” This aspect of the story gives the reader insight to the type of characters Missie May and Joe are. Because they live in an independent black community, it is obvious that they are self-respecting, hard working African Americans. Furthermore, the description of the happiness and hard work put into t...
Within her article, A Society of One: Zora Neale Hurston, American Contrarian, Claudia R. Pierpont, a writer and journalist for The New Yorker, tells, analyzes, and gives foundation to Zora Neale Hurston’s backstory and works. Throughout her piece, as she gives her biography of Hurston, she deeply analyzes the significance of Richard Wright, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, as he accuses Hurston of “cynically perpetuating a minstrel tradition meant to make white audiences laugh”(Pierpont 3). By doing so, Wright challenges Hurston’s authority to speak for the “black race” as he claims that her works do not take a stance, rather she only writes to please the “white audience. ”As his critiques show to be oppressive, Pierpont reminds the reader the
"Zora Neale Hurston is Born." history.com. A&E Television Networks, 7 Jan. 2016. Web. 12 Jan.
Zora Neale Hurston was born in Eatonville, Florida supposedly on January 7th, 1903. Living the life as the daughter of the mayor of an all-black incorporated town, Hurston was sheltered from racial prejudice that many other African Americans faced at that time. However, when Zora turned fourteen she snuck out of her house to work as a maid for white families. Her work provided her with access to a good education at Morgan Academy, Baltimore thanks to her employers. From there she went to Barnard College and met Franz Boas, an anthropologist for whom she worked under, and went to Howard and Columbia University to earn a PH.D. in anthropology. Hurston’s literary career didn’t start until she published her first story in 1921, and it didn’t pick
O’Conner, Flannery. “Good Country People.” Literature An Introduction To Fiction, Poetry, And Drama. Eds. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia 3rd ed. New York Longman, 2003. 247-261
In literature, the significant themes of a story can sometimes be developed within dramatic death scenes. With that being said, Zora Neale Hurston 's presents an unappreciated housewife and her high-class husband 's sinful ways which ultimately lead to the husband 's unplanned death, in her short story “Sweat”. The concluding death scene can best be described as illustrating the theme as “what goes around comes around”. Sykes was abusive and tried plotting his wife, Delia 's, death by using a rattlesnake, but his plan backfired and it was Sykes that was killed in the end.
Belasco, Susan, and Linck Johnson, eds. The Bedford Anthology of American Literature. Vol. 1, 2nd Ed., Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. 1190-1203. Print.