Their Eyes Were Watching God Analysis
Austin Turner
English 2303
Hurston and Wright Essay In the 1930’s era, there lived two writers: Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright. Now, we may ask ourselves, “What do these two authors have to do with each other? What was the point of Dr. Johnson pairing these two books together?” For starters, they are both black and they are both accomplished in their line of work. But one contrast that stands out is that one is a man and one is a woman. What does this feature have to do with the pairing of the books, though? Well, both of these authors have written a book that has become a classic among the masses that have read them, but the feeling is not mutual between the writers themselves. For both of the writers’ works, a review is given …show more content…
The story goes through her two failed marriages, ultimately leading up to her third marriage (and tragic ending) of her true love, Tea Cake. All throughout the story, a heavy, black dialect is used for the dialogue, making the story somewhat challenging to read. In Wright’s Black Boy, it is obvious that an autobiography is on these pages. It recounts Richard Wright’s life starting from when he burned his house down in Natchez, Mississippi, all the way through his life, ending with him going back to Chicago to be closer to his mother. Throughout the story, Wright gets into various accounts of trouble, prompting inevitable beatings from his elders. This is all happening while he gets a few jobs, writes a few published articles, and nomadically moves from place to …show more content…
Wright’s autobiography does not have much direction either. A story simply about one’s life usually has no theme or idea anyways. I also disagree with Wright when he says that “Miss Hurston seems to have no desire whatever to move in the direction of serious fiction.” Hurston’s novel is a fine example of a serious fictional story because it is something that is real and that people can relate to; it could be a true black woman’s story. The only seemingly nice thing that Wright says about this is all of four words: “Miss Hurston can write…” However, he couldn’t just let her have that. He follows that minor praise up with “…but her prose is cloaked in that facile sensuality that has dogged Negro expression since the days of Phillis Wheatly.” He is basically saying that her writing is not deep and almost weak, especially for the Negro culture. This isn’t fair because this is her writing style and she has been successful at it. It almost seems as if Wright has some sort of grudge with Hurston. Now, the true icing on the cake comes when Wright says Hurston “voluntarily continues in her novel the tradition which was forced upon the Negro in the theater, that is, the minstrel technique that makes the ‘white folks’ laugh.” Just because Hurston uses a very detailed
English 2303
Hurston and Wright Essay In the 1930’s era, there lived two writers: Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright. Now, we may ask ourselves, “What do these two authors have to do with each other? What was the point of Dr. Johnson pairing these two books together?” For starters, they are both black and they are both accomplished in their line of work. But one contrast that stands out is that one is a man and one is a woman. What does this feature have to do with the pairing of the books, though? Well, both of these authors have written a book that has become a classic among the masses that have read them, but the feeling is not mutual between the writers themselves. For both of the writers’ works, a review is given …show more content…
The story goes through her two failed marriages, ultimately leading up to her third marriage (and tragic ending) of her true love, Tea Cake. All throughout the story, a heavy, black dialect is used for the dialogue, making the story somewhat challenging to read. In Wright’s Black Boy, it is obvious that an autobiography is on these pages. It recounts Richard Wright’s life starting from when he burned his house down in Natchez, Mississippi, all the way through his life, ending with him going back to Chicago to be closer to his mother. Throughout the story, Wright gets into various accounts of trouble, prompting inevitable beatings from his elders. This is all happening while he gets a few jobs, writes a few published articles, and nomadically moves from place to …show more content…
Wright’s autobiography does not have much direction either. A story simply about one’s life usually has no theme or idea anyways. I also disagree with Wright when he says that “Miss Hurston seems to have no desire whatever to move in the direction of serious fiction.” Hurston’s novel is a fine example of a serious fictional story because it is something that is real and that people can relate to; it could be a true black woman’s story. The only seemingly nice thing that Wright says about this is all of four words: “Miss Hurston can write…” However, he couldn’t just let her have that. He follows that minor praise up with “…but her prose is cloaked in that facile sensuality that has dogged Negro expression since the days of Phillis Wheatly.” He is basically saying that her writing is not deep and almost weak, especially for the Negro culture. This isn’t fair because this is her writing style and she has been successful at it. It almost seems as if Wright has some sort of grudge with Hurston. Now, the true icing on the cake comes when Wright says Hurston “voluntarily continues in her novel the tradition which was forced upon the Negro in the theater, that is, the minstrel technique that makes the ‘white folks’ laugh.” Just because Hurston uses a very detailed