Neale Hurston's 'How It Feels To Be Colored Me'

LITR 221 Quiz 1
Speaking from your own life experience and observations, which writer least accurately represents what it means to be American? I would have to say it is Walt Whitman least accurately represents my life experiences in America. Why? Well in his poem “America” he talks of a “Centre of equal daughters, equal sons” (Whitman). There is nothing equal about America. There are those who have connections, networks of people, families of support that provide all with certain advantages or disadvantages. When I was in my late teens my mother worked for an eye doctor in Chicago. I needed a job so she told my mother to have me go and apply at the hospital were she was on staff. So
I did and within two weeks I was working fulltime in the supply/storage area. That is how America works for many Americans. Plus there is the time of Whitman’s writings they are from the 1800’s not that it is bad or anything but the America I know is way different than he experienced. Whitman did not have an automobile, a computer heck he probably did not even have a telephone in his home by the time he passed away. I understand we can only judge literary works on the content and the emotion or thoughts they provoke, but Whitman just does not do any of those things for me.
1)
2) References:

Whitman, Walt.
“America”. Retrieved from http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/238130 on 14 Feb 2015.

Compare and contrast the narrator of Zora Neale Hurston 's "How it Feels to Be Colored Me" and either Toni Morrison 's main character, Sula, or Alice Walker’s Dee. First looking at Zora she is the writer and main character in “How it feels to Be Colored Me” story. It is basically her life up to that point in history. Zora brings from the days she was little child in Eatonville, Florida sitting on the front porch interacting with the passerby. Many of the exchanges went like this “I usually spoke to them in passing. I’d wave at them and when they returned my salute, would say something like this: “Howdy-do-well-I-thank-you-where-you-goin’?” (Perkins 13). It takes all the way through to adulthood where Zora is finally in New York City going to Harlem jazz clubs. Zora for the most part does not feel black or that she is living a black life. She speaks as if she is just living and enjoying
it. As for Dee in the story told by Alice Walker.
It is a bit different since Dee is not the one telling the story of “Everyday Use”. Her mother is telling it. Dee is described from somewhat of a young age, but mostly her mother views her as very intelligent and well learned. An example is how she would read to her mother and sister Maggie “She used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice.” (Perkins 26). Her mother also sent her to a school in Augusta in order for her to get the education her mother thought she deserved. Dee like nice things such as clothes, jewelry, shoes. Dee seems to return from this schooling with some big ideas and a man in her life. It seems like she has become maybe a designer since she wants some old things from her mothers home to use them for
decorating. When you compare and contrast Zora and Dee in seems they both became educated in ways that many blacks did not during the early 1900’s. They also seemed to be there our souls not afraid of being black. I think where Zora just did not feel black most of the time Dee seems to be running from it in certain ways. Dee would always talk down to her sister and mother sometimes since they maybe lacked the same education as Dee. Zora just seemed to say no one is going to tell me I cannot do something cause I’m black. Zora also went away to school from where she grew just as Dee.

Reference:

Hurston, Zora N. Retrieved from Perkins, American Literature from The Civil War to Present. McGraw-Hill Learning Solutions, 07/2014. VitalBook file.

Walker, Alice. Retrieved from Perkins. American Literature from The Civil War to Present. McGraw-Hill Learning Solutions, 07/2014. VitalBook file.