Zora Neale Hurston Essays (Examples)

Conflict

The sacred notions of love held by Janie are dashed when she is compelled into a marriage that was not based on love and she rushed into a second marriage in order to escape from her first marriage. Janie's first marriage hit the rocks as a result of not having feelings for the man (Logan Killicks).She married Logan Killicks after being pressurized by Nanny. Janie got married to second man Joe Starks but the marriage become terrible for her since Joe was a very jealous man. Joe ordered her around and never allowed her to engage in social interaction such as delivering speech to the townspeople. Joe never allowed Janie to present her opinion. oth marriages were devastating to Janie and therefore her quest for true love became a mirage. She however soldiered on and met her third husband.

Complication

Janie then met her third husband who he considered…

They know he beats Delia enough to "kill three women" (352). He also has a reputation for cheating on his wife. He is such a despicable person that Old Man Anderson believes he should be killed. Delia seems to be in a losing situation. Her husband hates her and there seems to be nothing she can do. Her strength is overlooked to a certain extent. Through it all, she manages to work and work hard. She retains her dignity when others might have given up.

"Sweat" is really about karma. Delia works hard and she is the only one in the household who does work hard. Sykes is a bum and a moocher. He built a life with Delia through intimidation and regular beatings. e know that she is and he is accustomed to her "habitual meekness" (350). Sykes has been getting away with mistreating Delia for some time and…

Zoa Neale Huston epesent Delia and Sykes in the fist pat of the stoy?

Sykes is clealy a sadist of some sot. When Delia is fightened by the bullwhip, thinking it's a snake and tiggeing he phobia, Sykes laughs at he and does not cae how much he fightens he. It sets up the fact that Sykes will attempt to kill Delia (and fail) by the end of the stoy.

What change can you see in Delia's behavio towads Sykes in the fist pat of the stoy? Discuss what this could tell you about Zoa Neale Huston's attitude towads gende.

Delia stands up to Sykes, seemingly fo the fist time, by telling him that it's he sweat that pays fo eveything. This is tue. Because Delia is doing all the wok while Sykes eaps all the benefits, and sneaks off to copulate with his mistess Betha, it is clea that…

She contemplates her life as an independent woman rather than as her role as a wife, and resists developing another relationship. Her independence is unconventional, and Phoebe tells her so. Unmarried women do not have a place in a traditional southern society. Gender roles are strictly proscribed in Southern society. The way the community perceives Janie is a continual theme in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Social conventions restrict the role of women, preventing them from being self-sufficient and independent. Janie seems unable to find a man who treats her as her equal. Through Janie, Hurston suggests that gender roles are socialized. Janie longs to be free of restrictive gender norms.

Janie eventually falls in love with Tea Cake, which raises issues related to gender and class. The townsfolk disapprove of Janie's relationship with Tea Cake because he is poor and has a low social status. Janie does not mind…

John Dos Passos and Zora Neale Hurston Literature eview

"From the 42nd Parallel: Big Bill" by John Dos Passos

"From their eyes were watching God: the yellow mule" by Zora Neale Hurston

How do John Passos and Zora Neale Hurston feature common working American in their work?

It is said that the best travel writing isn't so much about the destination as it is about the journey. The destination serves no more than an interesting backdrop. Likewise, all the literature about the life of African-Americans and Americans is not just what they have achieved or not achieved in their life, but it's about the history they have created during their journey of pain, misery, comfort, glory or misfortune. After going through the literature of both the authors in their work named "From the 42nd Parallel: Big Bill" by John Dos Passos and "From their eyes were watching God: the yellow…

Self-Realization and Identity in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes ere atching God

Zora Neale Hurston explores the idea of a young black woman's search for identity in her novel Their Eyes ere atching God. Hurston emphasizes the idea that women, specifically during the twentieth century when this novel was written, need to find their independence and identity without being under the control of men. According to Pondrom, Their Eyes ere atching God has been analyzed as a quest for self-fulfillment or self-identity (181). Bernard also claims that "interpretations of the novel have focused, and continue to focus, on Janie's psychological, emotional, physical, folkloric, feminist, linguistic, and spiritual self" (2). The main character, Janie, is on a quest to find her freedom and her unique identity. Her primary avenues for her self-realization are her marriages to three men -- Logan, Joe, and Tea Cake. Hurston embodies Janie as a strong character…

Justice Served

Justice is served in Zora Neal Hurston's "Sweat." The writer shows the central character as a person who is subjected to a great deal of pain through her marriage with Sykes and thus makes his death seem less of a sad incident. This episode actually frees Delia and makes it possible for her to actually consider life without him -- a lifestyle that would involve her doing what she pleases rather than to be pressured by her husband. "She could scarcely reach the Chinaberry tree, where she waited in the growing heat while inside she knew the cold river was creeping up and up to extinguish that eye which must know by now that she knew." (Neal Hurston)

e learn immediately that Delia is the worker in the family. In spite of his attitude and in spite of the fact that he generally employs an authoritarian position when…

Hurston and Hughes

The United States has a history of racist policies towards African-Americans and other minorities. The predominant ruling class of this country has always been wealthy white Christian men. In order to sustain this position of power, all other minorities whether those be based on skin color, gender, or religion have been marginalized and classified as other. This othering has engendered a feeling in those people of the marginalized groups a feeling that in the United States, particularly in the first one hundred years of the nation's history, those othered people have minimal importance and are inferior to the people in power. riters Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston were both part of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and their works reflected the mentality of the oppressed African-Americans living in the United States at a time when they were still a marginalized people. Using her short story…

Sweat, by Zora Neal Hurston. Specifically, it will contain a biography of the writer and criticism of her work "Sweat," along with another story.

HUSTON'S "SWEAT" AND ANOTHE STOY

Hurston was born on January 7, 1891. She grew up in Eatonville, Florida, which was the first all-black town incorporated in the United States. "She received her early education at the Hungerford School, modeled after Tuskegee Institute, with its guiding principles of discipline and hard work; Hungerford's founders had studied with Tuskegee's founder Booker T. Washington" (Hill XVII). An avid reader, she soon learned to love myth and lore, and teachers and friends encouraged her love of books and reading. When she attended college, she majored in English, and began writing for several journals. She wrote "Sweat" in 1926. She also studied anthropology, and traveled to the South to research black folk tales and voodoo. She also wrote plays and journal…

Gender Identity/Male-Female Roles and Power Relationship. In a discussionof characters from "The Awakening" by Despite the fact that there are numerous differences existent in the novels The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Light in August by illiam Faulkner, and Their Eyes ere atching God by Zora Neale Hurston, there are some poignant similarities between these three works of literature. They were all written in the years directly preceding or occurring subsequent to the arrival of the 20th century, and they all deal with issues related to race (albeit extremely indirectly in Chopin's book). Moreover, all of these pieces chronicle definite challenges presented to women due to notions of gender and society that were pressing during this historical epoch. Some of the more salient issues affecting women during this time period, such as marriage and motherhood and the degree of autonomy (or dearth thereof) women had in living their lives is explored…

Racism and Society -- Literary Comparison

Zora Neal Hurston's heartfelt essay How It Feels to Be Colored Me (1928) presents the experiences of a young girl as remembered by an adult black woman in the early 20th century. Her narrative is simultaneously disarming and sad, because the good cheer and humor seems to belie justified resentment toward white merican society. She presents an image of cheerful acceptance of racial inequality and the persistent social exclusion and discrimination more than half a century since slavery was abolished. Her tone when relating heartbreaking memories is reminiscent of the "everything happens for a reason" mentality and it seems to be concealing repressed resentment.

There is a glimpse of the anger bubbling under the surface of cheerfulness when the author describes dancing "wildly inside myself; I yell within, I whoop; I shake my assegai above my head, I hurl it true to the mark…

Zora Neale Hurston's story "Sweat" the development of the characters is the most important element of this particular story. Delia, the main character, is a woman who is presented as a victim who has to put up with the constant domestic violence from her husband Sykes. It is those two characters that make up the entire story and it is them who define the meaning of this story. I debated whether the point-of-view would be an element of importance, but decided that without the character's introduction into the story, their point-of-views would not have made a difference. The ending of the story the irony of the characters development since Sykes death was in a sense his own fault. "Delia's work-worn knees crawled over the Earth," shows her hard dedication to whatever it was that she had to do. Regardless of her social situation, she worked hard because she knew she…

Tale as Told by another Character: Sweat - Zora Neale Hurston

Sweat

The spring came along with its flare of sunny afternoons in Florida on that particulate Sunday afternoon. For a given number of women in the small village populated by the black persons would be thinking of what the family would have for supper. However, for Delia Jones, she was still in bed, thinking of her previous life when she was still young and pretty. Then the thought of her poverty and suffering stricken husband hit her mind, and the trail of cursing and lamentations flowed from her mind; and eventually found their way into verbal words oozing from her mouth like the waters of the spring streams of the Amazon. Sure, this situation was getting to the peak of the humiliation and underpinning of poverty and suffering that she could take.

Delia sat up in her bed of…

Janie in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes ere atching God and Celie in Alice alker's the Color Purple

The main character and narrator of Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes ere atching God (1937), Janie, has much in common with the narrator and main character Celie within Alice alker's novel The Color Purple (1982). Each speaks authentically, in her own voice: the too-often ignored voice of an African-American female in a white male-dominated society. For both characters, however, authenticity of voice has come at great cost, and through the surmounting of numerous obstacles, the greatest of these being the fears and the lack of confidence within themselves. I will discuss several common characteristics of Celie and Janie within these two novels by female African-American authors.

As Henry Louis Gates, Jr. suggests, fear and hesitancy by African-Americans, male and female alike, to speak authentically, has deep roots: "For just over two…

This renunciation, depending on one's perspective, represents either a willful act of sacrifice or a selfish act of disobedience. Sandra Pouchet Paquet, however, frames this problematic deed in neutral terms in her analysis of the text, which focuses on its ambivalence toward the role of ancestral knowledge in identity formation. Paquet (2009) asserts that Janie "repudiates the values of her surrogate parents in her conscious quest for selfhood" (p.501). She also suggests that ancestral knowledge operates merely as a means to "psychic wholeness" in the novels and argues that the text is successful in exploring "the divorce from ancestral roots that accompanies conventional notions of success" (p. 500) Indeed, this tension between ancestral knowledge and individualistic goals is why Janie has to grapple with interpreting the nature of the knowledge imparted in her moments of coming to consciousness. Specifically, she wants to interpret the mystery conferred to her through the…

Magic as a Central Theme in "Moses, Man of the Mountain"

There has been magic in the world since time began. Even in the scientific world that has little to do with metaphysics, magic has a significant place because how can a scientist explain the tiny bit of matter that became the universe unless they do so with magic. Throughout history it has had a significant place because there are many things about this world that people still cannot explain, so they reason that there must be some unseen force behind it. Zora Neale Hurston saw this in the Biblical story of Moses, as have many others. He was able to do wondrous things with the staff he carried, the rod of power (Hurston), because of its magic. This paper discusses a central theme, magic, as it is developed in Hurston's book "Moses: Man of the Mountain" from the perspective…

pain when it comes to being different. In both Zora Neale Hurston's essay "How It Feels to Be Colored Me" and Richard Rodriguez's " Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood" the two writers discuss the differences they come upon that molded their principles and sentiments as they grew older. For Hurston hers was about being of a dissimilar race than her environment. For Rodriguez, his was about being different by communicating in another language. Both felt the effect it had on not just their lives, but also their thoughts as they matured into adulthood.

Rodriguez and Hurston viewed their differences as some sort of handicap. Each author imagined themselves in some way as being handicapped in life, of either not comprehending the language or not comprehending being of a different race. However, both authors found a way to overcome their personal struggles through turning these thoughts and struggles into growing…

Jim Crow Florida:

Views expressed by James Weldon Johnson and Zora Neale Hurston

This paper will examine the lives and beliefs of James Weldon Johnson and Zora Neale Hurston as well as exploring each of these individuals interpretation of class and gender in relation to race. This paper will answer the question as to whether their personal reflections of Jim Crow Florida were similar or different and how so.

Zora Neale Hurston, novelist, dramatist, folklorist, and anthropologist was born in, Eatonville Florida, on the day of the 7th, she "heard tell," of January in 1903. It is fairly certain that she was the fifth child born in a total of eight to her parents. That which Hurston, "heard tell" were her brothers different versions of her date of birth appearing to her that none of the brothers actually remembered exactly when she was actually born.

Her father, after her mother…

Horizon in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes ere atching God

The horizon is the line which forms the apparent boundary between earth and sky. The horizon is as far as you can see. The horizon appears to be the furthest point you can reach, but is not a place you can actually travel to. The horizon blurs at the line between earth and sky. The horizon is always present, no matter where you are or which direction you are facing. The horizon is where the sun rises and where the sun sets, representing a process coming full circle. These are all features of the horizon and they are all relevant to Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes ere atching God.

The novel suggests the importance of the horizon because it begins with it and ends with it. In the opening of the novel, Hurston writes:

Ships at a distance have every…

Community and the Impact on the Individual

How do individuals exist as part of a community and what does this means to a person's individuality? This is a key question explored by Zora Neale Hurston in Their Eyes ere atching God and by Carson McCullers in Ballad Of The Sad Cafe. Zora Neale Hurston and Carson McCullers both include a setting that represents the community. In Their Eyes ere atching God the setting is the porch, while in Ballad Of The Sad Cafe the setting is the cafe. The two settings both represent people existing as part of a community, rather than individually. The two settings also represent the conflicts that occur because people exist as part of a community. Overall, Zora Neale Hurston and Carson McCullers both show the conflict that occurs as an individual tries to align their own needs with the needs of the larger community. In…

prejudice is bad actually convince the reader?

A Buddhist monk, famous among his peers for the calm and serenity he constantly expressed, received the visit of a young man one day. The latter had come intent on disturbing the monk's peace and reputation and began attacking the master with a conglomeration of verbal expressions that even the foulest of men would have bowed their head in shame. Each word that came out of the young man's mouth was one more colorful than the other. And no remark that he addressed to the monk had anything but a pejorative sense of direction. As the young man went on to gesticulate vividly in a body language that matched his most "candid" acts of expressing, the Buddhist monk did nothing but gently smiled, causing the young man to build up more steam. Exasperated and drained out of energy, the man finally gave up…

Again, we see a strong, confident woman in Janie. She is also mature. Hattenhauer maintains that we can see this in they way Janie understands certain truths about life. She states that the "tragic truth, Janie has learned, is something no one could have told her, and something she cannot tell anyone" (Hattenhauer). hile Janie may be in denial of her immediate death, it is clear that she knows it will come to her sooner or later. hen she tells Phoeby that so many individuals never see the light at all, we know that "she sees the light at last: her fate is to wait and see if God's will is to take her life" (Hattenhauer). This is proof that Janie has emerged a strong, independent woman.

Their Eyes ere atching God is a glorious and painful story of one woman's discovery of her own voice. Janie evolves as a…

SEAT: a Case for Self-Defense

Literature plays many roles in our lives; it entertains us, frightens us, and thrills us, but if written well it also teaches us and gives us a greater understanding of ourselves and human nature as a whole. hen an author puts pen to paper he should have a story to tell or information he feels he must impart to the world at large so that the reader has a greater understanding of the life that surrounds him. Sweat by Zora Neale Hurston does that very well. Delia, the protagonist, attempts to live a moral and upright life, never dreaming of taking a life. Yet ultimately to save her own life she must use self-defense at the expense of her husband's life. Following this theme Hurston uses religious symbolism throughout her story to emphasize good and evil and the effect our choices have on our lives.…

Hate

There are a number of poignant similarities between Mama in Alice Walker's short story "Everyday Use" and Delia in Zora Neale Hurston's short story "Sweat." Both women are matriarch figures, African-American, and live in rural surroundings. As such, they each have a healthy dose of what is referred to as common sense -- although to other cultures and outsiders they may talk and act like simple, ignorant country bumpkins. Perhaps it is this perception of the two that makes them so accommodating to the will of others. But the principle similarity between each of these women is that she has a threshold for her tolerance level, and once it is broached she acts in a way that is belied by her simple, rustic manners.

There are domestic issues plaguing each of the matriarchs in their respective tales, which substantially contribute to the point at which they refuse to tolerate…

Racism

Personal anecdotes related to the experience of prejudice are usually the most effective means of convincing an audience that prejudice exists, and that it is painful. Moreover, an effective author connects the issue of prejudice to broader issues that all readers can relate to regardless of their personal experiences. Thus, it is important to show how the society suffers from prejudice too. African-American authors are in the position of sharing personal anecdotes about prejudice from within the framework of what is supposed to be a free, open, and tolerance society. Because of the paradoxes in American society, prejudice seems even more terrible and ironic. Maya Angelou, Zora Neale Hurston, and Brent Staples are all African-American writers who offer convincing arguments about prejudice.

Maya Angelou's autobiographical essay entitled "Graduation" is about her high school graduation in a segregated public school in Arkansas. Angelou's story is like that of other black…

Prejudice

hat is it like to experience prejudice on a daily basis? Many, if not most, whites do not know what it is like to be a member of an underclass. It is important to understand the structural elements of prejudice in a society. It is also important to understand how to deal with prejudice on a personal level. There are many ways to deal with prejudice. One is to fight back, and direct anger and frustration outward. The problem with this method is that fighting back sometimes entails physical aggression, and can be harmful to self and others. Another method of dealing with prejudice is to internalize the sense of inferiority and come to believe in the stereotypes and biased beliefs. The problem with this method is that it only promotes prejudice and allows for its perpetuation. Furthermore, internalizing inferiority can lead to problems like mental illness and disharmony…

men Janie's life influence: Logan Jody Tea Cake. 5-8 specific details quoted

Their Eyes Were Watching God

African-American writer Zora Neale Hurston has made a strong presence within the inter-war period and her most impressive book was Their eyes were watching God, the life story of Janie Crawford. Janie's life was dramatically marked by three men -- all of which were her husbands, at one point in her life.

Janie's first husband is Logan Killicks. Logan is an older man who became interested in Janie as a companion to running his farm. He was in fact looking for a wife to help around the house and help him keep the farm. The marriage had been arranged by Janie's grandmother, Nanny, who had been raped and had seen the same tragedy happen to her daughter. Janie was the result of two generations of rapes and Nanny was trying to ensure that…

Clash of Identities

Is a private identity a curse or a blessing? Is it necessary or valid to hide who you really are? According to "Aria: Memoir of a bilingual childhood" by Richard Rodriguez and "How it feels to be colored me" by Zora Hurston, creating a private identity and leaving your public identity behind, may be necessary, especially living, growing or entering an environment where it is not that accepting to cultural differences, there is probably not other culture during these times such as the exchange students from the Islam culture from the Azerbaijan State that can relate. "You need to study abroad! In the United States!" are two sentences many high school seniors, that do not live in the United States, hear from their mothers, fathers and counselors. There is a current obsession for children to get educated in the United States. The Azerbaijan State has gone as…

Some artists, such as Aaron Douglas, captured the feeling of Africa in their work because they wanted to show their ancestry through art. Others, like Archibald J. Motley Jr., obtained their inspiration from the surroundings in which they lived in; where jazz was at the forefront and African-Americans were just trying to get by day-to-day like any other Anglo-American. Additionally, some Black American artists felt more comfortable in Europe than they did in America. These artists tended to paint landscapes of different European countries. Most of the latter, however, were ostracized for this because many black politicians felt they should represent more of their African culture in their work (Campbell 1994, Powell and Bailey).

Whatever the case, most African-American artists during this period of time had a similarity that tied them together. Black art was often very colorful and vivacious; having an almost rhythmic feel to it. This was appropriate…

As an anthropologist, as she observed hoodoo practices of Southern blacks and became such a hoodoo priestess herself, she embraced subjectivity. (79) historian and woman ahead of her time, Hurston thrived not only, out of necessity on the physical margins of academia, but also on the professional margins of 'writing history.' But her techniques not only "became spaces of perspective" and "turned black folk" into legitimate subjects. Her perspective also made for a better writing of American history in general because it included the voices of marginalized figures. (118) Zora Neale Hurston took advantage of her "heightened penchant" for interdisciplinary study "to forge some of the first substantive academic research on African-Americans" but highlighted the need for interdisciplinary and openly subjective historical study in general, particularly of those peoples deemed to be marginal to mainstream 'written' American society and history. (138)

Hurston studied Black culture partly to recover her own…

Multi-Ethnic Literature

The focus of this work is to examine multi-ethnic literature and focus on treating humans like farm animals that can be manipulated for various purposes. Multi-Ethnic literature offers a glimpse into the lives of the various writers of this literature and into the lives of various ethnic groups and the way that they view life and society and their experiences. Examined in this study are various writers including Tupac Shakar, Dorothy West, Petry, and others.

A Rose Grows From Concrete

One might be surprised to learn that Tupac Shakar was the writer of many sensitive poems. Upon his death in 1996, Tupac's mother released a collection of poems entitled 'A Rose Grows From Concrete', which includes various love poems among the 72 poems in the collection. Tupac writes:

Things that make hearts break.

Pretty smiles

Deceiving laughs

And people who dream with their eyes open

Lonely children

Unanswered…

Money destroys and is the root of all evil, Hurston implies. Far from bringing people together, the coveting of money almost drives two happy people apart.

However, it is important to note that, while not rich, Missie and Joe are not impoverished. They have enough money to eat reasonably well, to go out for ice cream, and for small luxuries. Hurston is careful to note that the couple has already saved some money to support the coming child. To live in absolute poverty, in the midst of despair, is a very different matter. That is the life situation of the title character of "Sonny's Blues." The title of the story, which refers to 'blues music', underlines how the blues are a powerful symbol of hope and despair. Sonny's love of music, is what still remains 'good' about him, what still gives him hope, even when he is an addict. "I…

Fiction has the unique attribute of being able to be relatable to a person regardless of its implications to real life. No matter how bizarre a plot or character might be, it is the meaning behind everything that is obvious that makes the interpretation of stories unique and applicable to the human experience. This is greatly demonstrated in a collection of quotations from a variety of stories that all share one commonality: survival. No matter how tough things go, and no matter what life's circumstances can be, survival is the ultimate goal, and these stories all bring together that philosophy in a variety of ways, but all coming up with the same equal concept.

Nothing brings on this notion of survival more than Zora Neale Hurston does in her story "Sweat." Life is all about how hard one works in order to be able to excel and in order to…

African-Americans: Harlem Renaissance and the Black Power Movement

History does show that America has been a nation that has been seeing itself do some changes that have been happening over and over again. Also, America is recognized as being the home of the free and the brave. However, this nation that is considered to be beautiful has not at all times been this way. America has had to gone through a lot of ups and many downs to become the beauty that many look at today. Racial discrimination had a very strong part in American society. Although today, there are still racial dissimilarities. These racial dissimilarities are not as bad as they were in the back in the days of slavery and afterwards. Two of the main explanations that positive steps have been made in the direction of removing racial disparity is the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Power Movement.…

Harlem Renaissance

How does literature contribute to history, and what does the Harlem Renaissance reveal about U.S. History?

Modern U.S. History

Content Learning Objective (content and product):

e.g., students will be able to [content analysis] by [product and activity].

What historical content will students know at the end of the lesson?

At the end of the lesson students will know the literary significance of the Harlem Renaissance within a historical context. Specifically, they will understand how the literary aspirations realized through the Harlem Renaissance contributed to United States history in terms of literature and the fine arts.

State using Formal Objective format.

Historical Thinking Learning Objective (thinking skill and product):

e.g., students will be able to weigh [historical thinking learning objective] by [activity].

Describe what students will know and be able to do at the end of the lesson related to your chosen historical thinking skill.

The students will be…

Synthesis: This quote is similar to a comment Nick makes about the Tom and Daisy Buchanan in F. Scott Fitzgerald's the Great Gatsby: "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy -- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made" (188). Though the Buchanans are not exactly like Mama Elena in their motives, and completely unlike her in their "carelessness" because Mama Elena's destructive impulses are controlled and purposeful, both quotes demonstrate the selfishness and amount of control that the characters involved like to exert on the others around them.

Dialectic Journal #2

Quote: "Each person has to discover what will set off these explosions in order to live, since the combustion that occurs when one of them is ignited is what nourishes…

Given that Christianity tended to view history as progressive, and Christ's sacrifice and the event of Christendom being the ultimate apex of earlier civilization, the past was often seen as an inferior precursor to the present in a particularly judgmental light -- hence the persecution of certain groups as infidels and outsiders. It is the historian and the anthropologist's duty to unpack such cultural assumptions and to view the world through a less morally-clouded and self-justifying lens.

References

Episode 2: Conquest. (2005). Guns, Germs & Steel. PBS. Retrieved May 31, 2011 at http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/show/episode2.html

Anthropological research project: Celebrating women anthropologists

URL: http://anthropology.usf.edu/women/index.html

his website catalogues the research of famous women anthropologists throughout the ages. It has a specifically feminist slant, and details the research these women engaged in, along with their personal struggles for recognition in the field. While most people are familiar with the work of Margaret Mead in Samoa,…

Short story -- A brief story where the plot drives the narrative, substantially shorter than a novel. Example: "Hills like White Elephants," by Ernest Hemingway.

Allusion -- A casual reference in one literary work to a person, place, event, or another piece of literature, often without explicit identification. It is used to establish a tone, create an indirect association, create contrast, make an unusual juxtaposition, or bring the reader into a world of references outside the limitations of the story itself. Example: "The Wasteland" by T.S. Eliot alludes to "Paradise Lost" by John Milton.

epetition -- The repeating of a word or phrase or rhythm within a piece of literature to add emphasis. Example: The story of Agamemnon in The Odyssey by Homer.

Blank verse -- Unrhymed lines of ten syllables each with the even-numbered syllables bearing the accents, most closing resembling the natural rhythms of English speech. Example: "The…

suck-egg mule!": An Examination of Southern Euphemisms

Euphemisms lend languages a colorful and meaningful quality that is not easily achievable otherwise, and all languages share this common linguistic feature to some extent. Although euphemisms provide a useful linguistic shortcut and add flavor to conservations and writing, they are one of the more challenging aspects of learning another language because of their esoteric qualities and subtleties of meaning that defy ready analysis by outsiders. In the case of the American South, the euphemisms that have emerged over the years may likewise appear to be almost from another country to Americans living in California, say, or New York because of these same esoteric qualities. In order to avoid being labeled a "dirty ol' suck-egg mule" in this regard and as discussed further below, this paper provides a review of the relevant literature to identify traditional and modern euphemisms used in the American…

Cullen Poem

Cullen's "For a Lady I Know": Biography in Poetry

Counte Cullen, a prominent poet of his time and a standout from the Harlem Renaissance, illuminates the extremely controversial issue of racism towards African-Americans as well as societal class issues in "For a Lady I Know." His short poem (only two stanzas) is terse as it illustrates the inequalities African-Americans face as well as the ignorance and superior attitude rich white people often have towards them. It is not often that such a short work can accomplish conveying copious amounts of information and elicit numerous feelings in one reading but "For a Lady I Know" certainly does.

As popular as he was, it is interesting to learn that Counte Cullen's life is shrouded in mystery. He was born Cullen Porter in 1903 but the location of his birth is much debated even today. New York City and Baltimore have…

Civil ar

From Slavery to African-American

By the beginning of the Civil ar, there were some four million African-Americans living in the United States, 3.5 million slaves lived in the South, while another 500,000 lived free across the country (African pp). The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 granted freedom to all slaves in the Confederacy, and the 13th Amendment of 1865 freed the remaining slaves throughout the nation (African pp). During the Reconstruction Era, African-Americans in the South gained a number of civil rights, including the right to vote and to hold office, however, when Reconstruction ended in 1877, white landowners initiated racial segregation that resulted in vigilante violence, including lynchings (African pp).

This resulted in the Great Migration of African-Americans from the South to the North during the beginning of the twentieth century (African pp).

From this Great Migration came an intellectual and cultural elite group of African-Americans that grew…

Man's Ability To Treat Humans Like Animals

It is a vivid fact that the feelings of cruelty, discrimination and racial distribution are embedded well in to human nature since its very inception. This world depicts several cases where humans treat other humans like animals and ignore their right of living peacefully and according to their own will. This article highlights the work of several writers who have depicted the different ways in which humans have been treated brutally by other humans. Majority of the cases deal with racial discrimination and poverty-based cruelty issues encountered by humans. The article presents an in depth analysis of the works of seven different writers and how their works represent the ill treatment encountered by the human race.

Charles Chestnutt's "Po Sandy" and its Linkage to Human Cruelty

"Po' Sandy" written by Charles Chestnutt is basically the story of Sandy, who is made the slave…

O rother, Where Art Thou?

Homer in Hollywood: The Coen rothers' O rother, Where Art Thou?

Could a Hollywood filmmaker adapt Homer's Odyssey for the screen in the same way that James Joyce did for the Modernist novel? The idea of a high-art film adaptation of the Odyssey is actually at the center of the plot of Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 film Contempt, and the Alberto Moravia novel on which Godard's film is based. In Contempt, Prokosch, a rich American dilettante film producer played by Jack Palance, hires Fritz Lang to film a version of Homer's Odyssey, then hires a screenwriter to write it and promptly ruins his marriage to rigitte ardot. Fritz Lang gamely plays himself -- joining the ranks of fellow "arty" German-born directors who had earlier deigned to act before the camera (like Erich von Stroheim in Wilder's Sunset oulevard, playing a former director not unlike himself, or…

lack Intellectuals, by William M. anks. Specifically, it will briefly state the main themes/ideas of the articles, and discuss the impression the book made on the reader.

LACK INTELLECTUALS

William M. anks attempts to survey the culture and society of black intellectuals in his book, and looks at their history. His main thesis seems to illustrate the many obstacles blacks have had to face in order to gain education during their history in the United States. He clearly shows it has not always been easy for intellectual blacks to make their way in America, or even receive a good education. anks discusses some very prominent black American intellectuals, such as Alexander Crummell, Frederick Douglass, Anna Cooper, W.E.. Du ois, Alain Locke, and Toni Morrison. In addition, he discusses how even the more educated slaves acted as resources to the people around them, and served as an inspiration to others who…

Racism and Society -- Literature Response

Race and Identity as Functions of Societal Labeling and Expectations

Two pieces of 20th century literature exemplify the alienation felt by African-Americans in the United States. One of those works, authored by Zora Neal Hurston in 1928, is the essay How It Feels to Be Colored Me, which vividly illustrates the degree to which the identity of a black person in the pre-Civil Rights era was defined by white society. More importantly, Hurston's work also illustrates how much of a conflict and perpetual struggle African-Americans experienced internally if they tried to maintain their own self-identity. hereas many blacks of that era bought into the expectations foisted on them by white society, others resisted this artificial identity that was imposed on them. Hurston clearly was shaped by this dynamic and bitterly resisted the self-identity that she was expected to have accepted and reflected to get…

acism and Society -- Literature Letter

Senator Mitch McConnell

317 ussell Senate Office Building

Dear Senator McConnell:

I am writing to express my reaction to your four-year effort to ensure the failure of the presidential administration of President Barak Obama. First, let me say that I have never been a politically-oriented person; I am not even a registered voter. However, I have been monitoring news reports about the current state of the nation and of the disgraceful abuses of power exhibited by you and the other high-ranking members of your epublican Caucus. The manner in which you and your colleagues have reduced the U.S. Congress into a dysfunctional and ineffective Legislative Branch of our government (Grunwald, 2012) is the reason I am writing, the inspiration for this letter comes from my recent exposure to several pieces of 20th Century literature with which you might not be familiar. Copies of them…

Treatment of Bipolar Disorder?

Grade

The article what is the treatment for Bipolar Disorder by G. ayel revolves around the treatment options for Bipolar Disorder. The article lacks a proper introduction which otherwise would have begun with the explanation of bipolar disorder giving a brief overview about the maniac and depressive episodes along with the need to treat the disorder before proceeding onto the treatment procedures. Despite this, the author presents a coherent logical progression and sequence in his article by clearly describing the role of medicines such as antidepressants and antipsychotics. Although several terms such as mood stabilizers and psychotherapy are not elucidated, the order of ideas presented by ayel Michael in his article is vital in understanding the treatment strategies of bipolar disorder.

The main point of the writer is to explain the ways in which Bipolar Disorder can be treated. Since the writer has not explained the…

Gender and Violence

Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass and Their Eyes Were Watching God share much in common, though the works were written at different points in time. Douglass's autobiography first appeared in 1845, written to prove that a slave could develop, virtually unaided, into a moral and intellectual human being, and a speaker of power and eloquence. Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God appeared almost a century later in 1937 and is seen as a work that documents the legitimate experiences of black people, especially women. Yet, protagonists whose lives were shaped by violence, oppression, patriarchal control, and a quest for personal freedom characterize both works. One reason that could be attributed to the stark similarity in Douglass and Hurston's narratives is the historical context and effects of slavery and oppression of the black people. Thus, the blatant enslavement and brutality described by Douglass manifests itself in…

. . "

"I don't recall having sold the house," Ned said, "and the girls are at home."

(Cheever)

In the narration Ned continues on his journey home. Once he is home it is revealed that his house is indeed empty and his wife and daughters are gone. This is just one example of the conflict that exist in this narration between was is reality and what is illusion.

In addition to this aspect of conflict in The Swimmer, there is also a great deal of conflict associated with Ned's ability to swim across the county. This conflict exist because Ned also drank strong alcoholic beverages throughout his journey. It would have been next to impossible for him to swim after he had consumed just a few of these drinks. This is an obvious conflict that would have hindered his journey but the author presents it as fact and not…

hile the poems are no doubt universal, we can see elements of Americana sprinkled throughout them. Cultural issues such as decision-making, the pressure of responsibility and duty, and the complexity of death emerge in many poems, allowing us to see society's influence on the poet. In "The Road Not Taken," we see how life is filled with choices. Because we are American, we are lucky enough to experience freedom but this does not always come without difficulty. ith this poem, the narrator explains how decision-making can be trying because we never actually know how things are going to turn out. Nevertheless, we must make choices and get on with our lives. In "Stopping by oods," the narrator encounters a similar type of conflict in that the pull of our fast-paced American lives makes him or her want to stay in the woods for just a little while to enjoy the…

But since their sense of righteousness is flawed, their plans fall apart and the ending is quite disastrous as owe explains: "When they reach town, the putrescent corpse is buried, the daughter fails in her effort to get an abortion, one son is badly injured, another has gone mad, and at the very end, in a stroke of harsh comedy, the father suddenly remarries" (138).

Addie and Cora represent two different versions of right. For Cora faith is on lips all the time and she expresses righteousness through words, for Addie, actions are more important and thus she appears vain compared to Cora but has a deeper and more accurate sense of right and wrong. While Cora appears with utterances such as "I trust in my God and my reward" (70) and "Riches is nothing in the face of the Lord, for e can see into the heart." (7) Addie…