How To Fly

I really like titles, and so this blog post is on the title of Their Eyes Were Watching God  by Zora Neale Huston. The most obvious allusion to the title is when the hurricane approaches the muck, and "six eyes were watching god". But what does that mean, to be watching god? Obviously, Jesus himself doesn't descend from the heavens and bless the rains (African American Literature, not Africa). Taking a step back, I think Hurston wants to show us how vulnerable the inhabitants of the muck are. As an anthropologist, it's her job to portray life in the muck as accurately as possible. She shows how much the black inhabitants of the muck are at the mercy of natural disaster and other things beyond their control. Interestingly, Mr. Mitchell noted in class that one main criticism for Their Eyes Were Watching God was that Hurston seemed to portray life in the muck as a frivolous and happy endeavor. Working all day and gambling all night, Tea Cake remarks that he "can...

While doing my poetry talk yesterday, a lot of people made connections from my poem to Martin's poem "We Real Cool" last week, and to be honest that poem never crossed my mind while I was preparing for the talk. However there are a lot of similarities between the poems in both length and topic. However there are some key differences, some that were pointed out in discussion. I think someone said that "We Real Cool" was more critical of the black deaths, while "those boys that ran together" was more mournful. I think I somewhat agree with this, because I don't think "We real Cool" was critical at all. When I read it it felt like more of a celebration of their lives instead of a denunciation. It did have a sort of sarcastic tone to the "cool" description of their lives, which might suggest criticism, but I didn't read it that way. One point I really did want to bring up but didn't have time was the lack of punctuation ...

I think one of the most interesting parts of Invisible Man  is the Brotherhood, which is probably a direct allusion to the American Communist Party. I'm not completely certain whether Ellison is portraying them as a good or bad organization, because the narrator still sticks with them even as he's being shunted sideways and around Manhattan. We don't even get a lot of insight into the Brotherhood ideology which may or may not have changed my opinion on them. We only have a small set of interactions between the narrator and some of the members of the Brotherhood. I really dislike the Brotherhood. For a society that's based on the advancement of the human race, they have some pretty backwards ideas. As a piece of African American Literature that's dealing with racial issues I think Ellison is spot on with his portrayal and subsequent criticism of how the Brotherhood confronts race. They pretend they are thinking more rationally and scientifically by envisioning a wo...