For your annotation, you should clearly highlight the core arguments of the critical essay, including specific quotes from the essay itself (essay writer), its support from the novel (Hurston), and your overall discussion of the author's arguments.
11 Comments
Bradley Runyon
2/28/2013 01:36:03 am
Bradley Runyon
Reply
Jena
2/28/2013 02:02:49 am
Racine, Maria J “Voice and interiority in Zora Neale Hurston’s ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God’ explains on how consistent Hurston focused on Janie’s voice because Michael Awkward stated “Perhaps the dominant image in the recent creative and critical writing of Afro-American women [is] the struggle to make articulate a heretofore repressed and silenced black female’s story and voice.” Racine explains in her opening paragraph of how black history has shown to “silence” African American women and ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God’ clearly portrays another side to how black women branched out with telling their story. Racine says “It is important to question the internal consciousness of each character in Their Eyes, including the purpose behind the male voices, and to examine the ways in which the male voices affect Janie’s.” With reading the novel you see how each man will either try to control Janie she will rebel and only want to find the life to live and be free and in the end with Tea Cake her lover she finds that, sadly he passes very soon compared to her previous marriages. Racine follows in by stating how “Hurston, [is] an informing narrative consciousness, uses interiority in Their Eyes to characterize those who are silent and lack their own voices, as well as to add dimension to those with voices.” She’s explaining how when a character was rendered by not being able to speak the narrative was there to allow that silence to be broken. This leads back to Racine’s first paragraph stating how “Voice” is the main focus to be seen in Their Eyes Were Watching God. The achievement of Janie is compared, Racine says, to the men, “of whom Killicks and Starks represent control and Tea Cake Woods and Johny Taylor represent passion.” The men in Their Eyes not only symbolize Janie and how she grew through the story went on but also the passion and control directly corresponding to voice. Voice is the main topic of discussion and how it’s used in Their Eyes relating all back to Janie. Racine later in her essay goes into major detail of Janie’s and Tea Cakes love for each other and a deeper meaning behind the two as a pair. Not only is Tea Cake explained to as the passionate one but “helplessness—she knows that her husbands illness is incurable, that he will die, and that there is nothing she can do—yet she decides to live.” The love Janie felt for Tea Cake was unbreakable and this is explained
Reply
Maddie B.
2/28/2013 02:20:54 am
Hattenhauer, Darryl. “The death of Janie Crawford: tragedy and the American Dream in “Their Eyes Were Watching God.’ (Special Issue: Varieties of Ethnic Criticism).” MELUS 19.1 (1994): 45+. Diversity Studies Collection. Web.28 Feb. 2013.
Reply
Emily Y.
2/28/2013 03:45:58 am
Within “The Compelling Ambivalence of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God,” William M. Ramsey examines the role of the relationships within Janie’s life in comparison to the ones that actually occurred in the novel. Although initially the essay seems to be entirely a critique of the widely acclaimed novel by Hurston, it proves to be a more in depth analysis as to how the seven week miracle of a book has the affect it does. Evidence of disapproval of Hurston’s novel herself is found early in the essay “had she let her novel mature more slowly, had she an opportunity to have it back, and had Lippincott asked for more substantive finishing, its final shape might have been quite different,” (pg. 38). Ramsey goes on to further enumerate on Janie’s quest to find autonomy, one also similar to the journey taken by Hurston as she separated from her husband. One of the first critiques of the novel is that even by the end the author has failed to create a sense of closure. Janie has not shown that she can be independent in the end perhaps symbolizing how Hurston has also not fully developed autonomy. Furthermore “The novel’s opening words, comparing people’s dreams to “ ships at a distance” that “sail forever on the horizon”, establish Janie as someone who has sailed to the horizon (much as Hurston had sailed to the Caribbean just before writing this narrative,) (pg. 41). More similarities are found between the two in the novel and are also elaborated on in the essay. The social differences between Janie and her husbands are also dually noted, how class status affects rank in society, as well as the bounds of society. A topic fully covered within the novel, especially during societies judgments of Janie marrying someone who was younger than her. Ramsey includes an analysis on how through her marriage to Tea Cake she attains liberation, but does not entirely reach satisfaction. “Janie finds romantic love in Tea Cake because, in her view, “He was a glance from God”(102), a declaration at odds with anti-patriarchal criticisms of his character,”(pg. 42). Janie has found herself in a relationship where love is a playful liberating love, where she no longer has to conform to what her husbands have wanted her to be, and the odds are that she finds someone who doesn’t have status, someone who does not want things rather the person, antithetically to the men who eyed Janie and noticed her “parts rather than her person,” (pg. 42). Although restoration of happiness to Janie’s life seems obvious, the author ends the novel tragically, with Janie killing her last love. Representative of how even if he accepted her mainly for all of her character he also had to ‘hit’ her to show his dominance over her, a characteristic not favorable to Janie or Hurston. As for the title of the essay addressing the ambivalence of the work, it can be best summed up “Hurston is profoundly ambivalent because the privileging of her own autonomy undercuts some of the values the novel means to promote,” (pg. 40). If one thing is done thoroughly it is that Hurston does not remain dedicated to one point. What Hurston herself tries to show as a theme in her book ends up being hypocritical to what is actually occurring in her life, illuminating a difference between the two feminists.
Reply
August W.
2/28/2013 04:00:18 am
In Maria Racine's essay "Voice and interiority in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God" she discusses the interiority (the authors full and relatively non judgmental rendering of a characters internal consciousness and thoughts) and how it relates to the voice of the novels main character Janie, how Janie develops her own voice throughout the story, and how Janie's voice grows along with each relationship she has. First Racine talks about how Janie develops her own voice in the story and breaks free from the "societal women bonds that cross all races, borders, and cultures" with each new relation ship she holds. Her forst relation ship being with Johnnie Taylor is with passion and heat, and is as Racine puts it, a relationship without voice from either party and plays little importance in the novel character wise but embodies what Janie wants in her relationship much like her relationship with Tea Cake. Next is the relation ship with Logan Killicks where Janie has no voice and convention of how she feels much like Killick does, so that both dont know what the other is feeling or thinking and thus Janie has no voice in the story. Then when Janie discovers Jody and how he carries himself orally shefinds within herself a hidden gift with oration and demonstrates this towards the end of Jodys life by stripping him of all power in front of his friends and verbally fighting back against Jodys oppression and his use of her as a possesion much like Logan did. This is the first step in Janie's journey and discovery of her own voice, and finally moves on to find her voice through the relationship with Tea Cake. Racine analyzes Janie being with Tea Cake and Janie finding her voice as that Tea Cake wanted Janie with him and wanted to hear what she was thinking and feeling, admonishing her to do it where Janie opens up to him hesitantly with his permission to speak. By the end of Janies relationship with Tea Cake she uses her ability exceptionally well and is able to transfer part of her voice and story to Pheoby so that everyone in Eatonville knows what really happened. Throughout the essay Racine also intertwines with the development of Janies voice and her progression in her relationships, with Hurstons interiority of Janie. Racine makes multiple comments about how Hurston uses the narratorial piece in place of Janies voice at times and especially during the end when Janie could have said something critical or insightful about her life.
Reply
Mackenzie J.
2/28/2013 02:22:47 pm
Maria Racine’s critical essay, “Voice and interiority in Zora Neale Hurston's 'Their Eyes Were Watching God.' (Black Women's Culture Issue),” discusses many of the symbolism in “Their Eyes Were Watching God.” The men Zora spent her days with each had their own meaning; as well as simple things, such as Janie not speaking, but the narrator speaking instead.
Reply
Cullen Ennis
2/28/2013 03:01:10 pm
"The Hierarchy Itself"
Reply
Cassidy Harless
3/1/2013 05:01:49 am
Hattenhauer, Darryl. "The death of Janie Crawford: tragedy and the American Dream in 'Their Eyes Were Watching God.' (Special Issue: Varieties of Ethnic Criticism)." MELUS 19.1 (1994): 45+. Diversity Studies Collection. Web. 28 Feb. 2013.
Reply
Nicky T
3/1/2013 05:58:05 am
Bealer, Tracy. “The Kiss of Memory”: The Problem of Love in Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God”
Reply
Evan B
3/4/2013 05:30:10 pm
In her critical analysis “Voice and Vision in Their Eyes Were Watching God” Professor Deborah Clarke responds to common criticism of author Zora Neale Hurston’s apparently “ambivalent” portrayal of Janie’s search for a voice. Clarke argues that while voice is often touted as the subject of most importance in black literature at the time of the Harlem Renaissance, “an African American tradition that has privileged voice as its empowering trope,” the influence of race does not begin with voice, but begins with vision. Clarke continues by pointing out specific examples of Hurston’s writing that emphasize the importance of sight in the formation of racial and individual identity, especially Hurston’s frequent use of the titular “watching” engaged in by many characters in the novel. This watching- watching God, watching each other (the “mass cruelty” of the porch-sitters), and watching oneself- is more influential in the struggle for identity than mere voice, because while talk can tear down a person, outward appearance is the first (and therefore most striking) feature of a person. Clarke argues that Janie’s status as only one-fourth black has provided her with slightly more privilege than her peers in Eatonville (Hurston employs the archetypal character of the self-hating black, Mrs. Turner, to highlight and exploit this fact), but has also resulted in her alienation from the black community. Janie’s physical beauty and “white” features are at first only simple appearances, but her treatment by others due to this beauty contributes highly to her divergence from typical expectations of her community. Clarke notes that Janie’s physical appearance has both blessed and plagued her, as her difference makes her more visible (a reiteration of Clarke’s core argument) and therefore immediately vulnerable to objectification. Jody’s “trophy-case” treatment of Janie does not help the matter, and only serves to make the situation more evident. This importance of vision to interpersonal relationships is emphasized during the verbal battle between Jody and Janie when Janie utters the final blow- “’When you pull down yo’ britches, you look lak de change uh life.’” Jody’s emasculation is not simply heard, but rather witnessed, by all the onlookers in the store, and his humiliation is made all the more terrible by his complete exposure. Clarke concludes that while Hurston does not focus on the search for voice as many other writers have, her use of sight- both metaphorically and explicitly- is her “accomplishment…nothing less than redefining African American rhetoric, rendering it verbal and visual.”
Reply
Sonja
3/20/2013 09:54:10 am
Deborah Clarke's article, "The porch couldn't talk for looking": Voice and Vision in Their Eyes Are Watching God, explains in detail about Janie's choice about telling her story and why "simply telling her story will not suffice, why she needs to provide the 'understadin' to go 'long wid it' '. (Clarke 599) Clarke continues on about how the visual id just as important as the story its self. Because Janie as a black woman who has not truly discovered and accepted her heritage, wants people to not only hear her story but understand why her story happened. "Hurston seeks a uniquely African American vision, a way of seeing that both recognizes color and see's beyond it." Clarke is describing the story of Janie, where yes shes black but shes also so much more than just that. She is a woman who has gone through so many different hardships, trying to find who she is a as an African American. "She shows her womanhood, a far different sight than gazed upon by the men, who see not Janie's presence but their own desire, desire which her body is expected to satisfy." This claim by Clarke, describes the way that Janie is seen as a prize and a sex symbol. By many men and other women as well she is put in her place and told to be a good, quiet, house wife. Where in fact this is the opposite of what Janie wants to be. And its certainly not the kind of love that Janie wants for herself.
Reply
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
August 2015
Categories |
|