AA Lit Blog

             At the end of our discussions of Their Eyes Were Watching God, we went over Richard Wright’s criticism of the novel. It seemed nearly unanimous that Wright failed to read Hurston’s book for what it was and “missed the point.” However, one criticism seemed to warrant more discussion: the comparison of the novel’s depiction of life in the muck to a minstrel show.             The most uncomfortable and “minstrel-y” part of the story may have been the view of work out on the farms. The characters are generally shown having a good time and goofing off when the boss isn’t looking. Hurston may seem to gloss over the challenges and hardships workers in this situation undoubtedly had to face. However, Wright’s criticism seemed to have an idea that the novel should have been entirely about the problems caused by white supremacy. Hurston, on the other hand, wrote a book depicting black cultur...

            One of the most difficult questions to ask in the early chapters of Their Eyes Were Watching God has been whether to trust Teacake. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say my first instinct was to trust him. He was far nicer to Janie than either Joe Starks or Logan, letting Janie be herself and seemingly putting an emphasis on her happiness. However, he has a “slipperiness” about him that throws into question whether one should trust him.             An even more important question than this one, however, is whether it matters if Teacake is trustworthy. In class we discussed a similar question when she left Logan for Joe Starks. Janie’s own sentiments, we decided, indicated that she would have left Logan regardless of the presence of Joe. A similar case, I believe, can be made for Teacake. Janie’s relationship with Teacake is an expression of her growing personal free...

            Chapter 19 of Invisible Man was a wild ride of humor, discomfort, and silliness. The funniest moment of this chapter for me was when the narrator asks, “But we’re going to discuss brotherhood and ideology, aren’t we? (Ellison 411)” At this point, I couldn’t help but be reminded of a whole category of memes; they feature an image of a displeased person with captions like, “when she invites you over for beyblades but then she starts taking off her clothes.” The narrator’s cluelessness is best shown by this line. Unfortunately, the woman moves on to talk about the narrator and his speaking. She uses words like “primitive,” “forceful,” and says he has, “tom-toms beating in his voice” (Ellison 413). In using these descriptors for the narrator, she shows that despite claiming to be part of a post-racial/anti-racism movement, she may be holding onto some strange ideas about the black people: that they are inherently more “pri...