Final blog

I feel that studying the Harlem Renaissance in the 21^st century is extremely relevant and important. Even though most of the themes of the Harlem Renaissance dealt with race, many of the issues are relevant to people in the 21^st century. Almost all of the poems, essays, and especially the novels that we read in this class are relatable in some way to us today. The Harlem Renaissance focused on themes including passing, exploring African roots, and trying to find identities.

Passing was a common theme in much of the literature of the Harlem Renaissance. Even though this was a concept that dealt with African Americans who were so light skinned that they could pass as white, it is also a concept that dealt with the repercussions of changing one’s identity. I think that we have all tried to pass as something that we are not at some point in our lives. Just as in Larsen’s novel, Passing we have had to deal with the consequences of our decisions and we have had to make difficult choices from this, much like the characters in Passing.

Another theme in the literature of the Harlem Renaissance was the need to explore one’s own identity. Much of this literature focused on African American characters who sought to find their identities amongst the discrimination that they faced. Ultimately, the characters were able to appreciate and understand their own identities. Probably the best example that we had in the literature that we read in class was the character of Janie in Larsen’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. Janie needed to explore the relationships in her life and find her strength in order to find her own “voice”. This is a theme in which most people today can relate. It is important for people to find their own confidence in who they are and what they stand for. We can all learn from the ways in which African Americans were able to find themselves despite the great odds that they faced.

Much of the writing of the Harlem Renaissance focused on trying to preserve the African heritage of African Americans. Claude McKay and Jean Toomer were very interested in exploring the roots of African Americans in order to better understand the position that African Americans were in at that time. Most people today can relate to the idea of valuing and preserving their own roots. It is very easy for people today to become wrapped up in the busyness of their own lives. We can learn from this theme from the Harlem Renaissance by understanding the need for and the importance of understanding where you come from. It seems to be too easy to forget sometimes.

I think that we can all admire and learn from the determination of the writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Many of these writers had to overcome hardships including racial and gender discrimination as well as financial barriers. I think that it shows a lot of courage by the way that Black writers broke out of the stereotypes imposed upon them by white society and the demands that were placed upon them to write for white audiences. Despite these odds, African American writers were able to produce high quality literature. Today, we are able to look back at this period in our history and appreciate African Americans’ willingness to take risks to represent their race accurately and creatively. They worked hard to gain the opportunities to express themselves freely. I think that everyone can recognize and learn from the ways in which African Americans bettered their lives and ultimately the lives of all African Americans today.

End of Their Eyes Were Watching God

The ending to this novel was very dramatic and fast-paced. Hurston crammed a lot of action into a few chapters. I was very shocked by the ending. I never expected this novel to go from Janie exploring her own identify and the relationships to having the characters battling a natural disaster. I thought it was very interesting how Tea Cake and Janie chose to stay in town with the hurricane approaching. Most of the town as well as the local Native Americans were leaving and warning them to get out of town. Some of their friends even offered them a ride to leave. Tea Cake wanted to stay and make more money by working in the bean fields. I don’t understand why staying was so important to him when Janie had enough money to support them during the hurricane. It was strange because all he seemed to be gaining was a few extra days of work. He didn’t want to believe that they were in any real danger until they were knee deep in water.

I think that this hurricane really showed the extent that Tea Cake and Janie would go to be with each other and to keep each other safe. I think that Tea Cake especially took care of Janie during the hurricane. He carried her when she became exhausted from running and he fought with a mad dog to save her from being bitten or drowning. I really think that Janie owes her life to Tea Cake. He essentially gave up his own life to save her. This is why it was so ironic that Janie was the one that had to kill Tea Cake for her own safety. It was just so unfortunate the way that things ended.

When Tea Cake became sick and needed medicine, I thought for sure that they were going to get it in time. Janie had barely touched her money that she got when Joe died and sold the store. I thought that Janie was going to be able to use that money to buy the medicine to save Tea Cake.

When the doctor told Janie that she should put Tea Cake in a hospital so that he doesn’t get violent, I got the feeling that Tea Cake would eventually try to hurt her from his illness. This seemed like major foreshadowing about what was to come. I think that it was Janie’s strength and confidence in herself that allowed her to stay rational and calm throughout Tea Cake’s illness. Janie was able to figure out that Tea Cake had a pistol and she took the initiative to make sure that it would shoot blanks for the first two shots. This didn’t mean that Janie loved Tea Cake any less because she took measures to protect herself. I saw this as one of the most courageous and self assured acts that Janie did throughout the novel.

Hurston Blog 2

After reading Hurston’s article, I can really see many of the elements of African American expression in her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Tea Cake seems to exemplify Hurston’s idea of the dramatic, fast-talking African American. Tea Cake is always coming up with some kind of antic to gain attention. He pretends to play the guitar or he dances around energetically to make Janie laugh. There was also one part in the novel that seemed to really represent these characteristics of African American expression. Beginning on page 67, Daisy walks into town when some of the men were hanging around. Two of the men started to have a competition over Daisy’s attention, making dramatic comments about how they would buy her a passenger train or a steamship just to be able to marry her. The men put on quite a spectacle in the middle of town trying to see who could talk the biggest game in the most dramatic fashion in hopes to win over Daisy. Since this occurred in the middle of town it also went along with Hurston’s idea that there is no privacy with African Americans. The men were certainly not shy about proclaiming how much they liked Daisy to the rest of the town.

Throughout the novel, I really started to dislike Joe. He was always so mean to Janie and he expected her to just take it. As a woman, I was just waiting for the day when Janie was going to give it right back to him. Janie has too much fight in her to just let Joe tell her what to do all the time. Janie wasn’t meant for a life of being a trophy wife. I actually wasn’t surprised when Joe became ill and finally died. He treated Janie so horribly that she was bound to stand up to him eventually. Unfortunately, Janie did it so harshly that it cut Joe deeper than she had wanted it to. I always thought that Janie was meant to find another guy besides Joe anyways.

I was really glad when Janie found Tea Cake. From the very beginning he seemed like a genuine guy. I was really nervous when Tea Cake left Janie by herself after they got married. I didn’t know whether to believe that Tea Cake was coming back or to believe that he was lying to Janie the whole time. I still wasn’t happy even when Tea Cake came back to Janie. He had been out gambling and having fun without her. That doesn’t seem like a thing that a husband should be doing. I think that Tea Cake’s gambling addiction could become a real problem. I can’t believe that Janie was so willing to allow Tea Cake to just take her money and spend it. Janie didn’t seem the least bit upset when Tea Cake came home after being gone all night and day with all of her money spent.

Hurston Blog

As I begin reading Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, I am finding it difficult to follow the story at times because the African American dialect used throughout the novel is confusing and hard to understand. However, there is a very real and authentic quality about Hurston’s writing. The African American dialect makes me feel as if I am in the south and I can really hear these characters talking. In the first few pages of the novel when the townswomen were all talking about Janie as she walked into town, I felt as though I could actually see and hear the women gossiping and chatting amongst themselves. Hurston’s writing has a unique quality in the way that it can bring out imagery for the reader.

As the novel continued, I saw a real connection between this novel and Johnson’s, The Biography of an Ex-Coloured Man. When Janie discovered that she was African American after she saw a picture of herself and her white friends it was reminiscent of how the narrator realized that he was African American after he was told in school in front of his peers. For each of these characters, it seemed to be a significant moment when they discovered their identity as an African American.

So far in this novel, Janie’s life has been a whirlwind. She goes from being a poor girl living with her grandmother to being a mayor’s wife. It all seemed to have happened very quickly, even too quickly for Janie herself to understand. I wasn’t surprised when Janie left her first husband because she didn’t love him but what I am surprised about is that she hasn’t found love with her second husband, Joe. It seems to me that Janie did not think through her relationship with Joe. She just took off with him without knowing anything about him. I thought that she would find love and happiness with Joe but instead Janie is expressing feelings of being “far away from things and lonely” (46). I don’t think that being a mayor’s wife is quite what Janie expected when she ran off with him. Now Janie has suddenly found herself in the upper class of African American society. This is a stark contrast from her life before and I don’t think that she is comfortable with this new role. Janie is used to the lifestyle that her grandmother raised her in as a servant. This new lifestyle will certainly be an adjustment for her. I’m very interested in seeing how Janie reacts to this new situation.

Hughes Poems

It was very interesting in class when we analyzed some of Hughes’ poetry after listening to jazz and blues music. This activity showed the importance of jazz during this time and the influence of jazz on writing and the lives of African Americans. In my opinion, Hughes possessed great talent to be able to incorporate the music of the time into his poetry. As we read and discussed two of Hughes’ poems, Jazzonia and The Weary Blues which were obviously influenced by music, it was amazing to see how Hughes incorporated this into his writing.

It is very obvious from Langston Hughes’ essay, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain, that he was a proponent of writing about racial representation. Hughes harshly criticized Countee Cullen for wanting to be seen as simply a poet and not as an African American poet, as well as for writing about universal themes. When reading The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, I consciously looked for themes of racial representation in his work. Almost all of Hughes’ poems dealt with the African American heritage, as well as relevant issues in African Americans’ lives. The poems, Danse Africaine and Dream Variations directly reference Africa and the significance of African roots. The poem, The South, characterizes African American life in the south. Hughes also offers poems of racial uplift for example, America and I, Too. These poems looked to offer African Americans a sense of hope and inspiration to persevere through the adversity they faced in the United States during this time.

Hughes’ writing is much different from Countee Cullen’s poetry. Besides the obvious differences between their writing of Cullen’s universal themes and Hughes’ racial representation, Cullen’s poems were often wordy and difficult to interpret whereas Hughes’ poetry is mostly straightforward and much more literal. At times I have difficulty moving beyond the literal meaning of Hughes’ poems to finding a more interpretive meaning. However, I have found Hughes’ writing to be very genuine, easily relatable, and representative of the race. I can see why Langston Hughes was one of the most influential writers of the Harlem Renaissance.

Cullen Poems

The one poem of Cullen’s that really stuck out to me was “Incident”. This poem is a straight-forward, realistic account of many incidences that occurred in the lives of African Americans during this time. For the eight year old in this poem, it may have been the first time that he was called that racist term. I would assume that for every African American who has been referred to by this name that it was a traumatic, memorable experience. This poem was a simplistic piece of writing but it captured the essence of racism through one moment. I thought that this poem was one of Cullen’s most captivating pieces of writing. He wrote one line about the racism that this young child experienced that was especially memorable stating, “Of all the things that happened there that’s all that I remember” (9).

Another very interesting poem of Cullen’s is “The Litany of the Dark People”. This poem coincided with many of the themes in Cullen’s writing that we have been discussing in class. “The Litany of the Dark People” used religion to represent the struggles of African Americans. This poem appealed to me because I thought that stylistically and structurally this poem worked very well. I liked that it was set up sequentially because each stanza represented a different phase in the African Americans’ lives. The poem began by referencing slavery and how it is an experience of the past. Cullen used a very descriptive line to reference slavery in the first stanza that I thought was particularly relevant stating, “our flesh that was a battle-ground shows now the morning-break” (53). Cullen continues the poem by portraying the African Americans as strong and unyielding. In this stanza they are determined not to allow all of the hardships that they have faced to keep them from their goals. One line that was particularly powerful in which Cullen states, “Yet no assault the old gods make upon our agony shall swerve our footstep from the wake of Thine toward Calvary” (53). Then in the third stanza of this poem, Cullen sees hope for the African Americans’ future or at least for their final destinations. I saw Cullen’s message for this poem as one of inspiration to African Americans to hold on for brighter days.

Negro Youth Speaks

Alain Locke’s essay, Negro Youth Speaks is very representative of the Harlem Renaissance. It discusses the younger generation who Locke refers to as the “voice of the New Negro” (47). It is through this younger generation that African Americans have broken into true artistic levels, competing with their white counterparts. At this time, art became a very important segment of society for African Americans to showcase their talents and accomplishments. Locke feels that this new generation has “stopped speaking for the Negro” and now “they speak as Negroes” (48). It is this New Negro that has changed society and the way that African American art is evaluated. I liked that Locke pointed out that the African American artists of the Harlem Renaissance had a new way of thinking and a new outlook about their lives. Locke stated that African American artists had a “new aesthetic and a new philosophy” (49). I think that this new attitude gave rise to the Harlem Renaissance and characterized this time period in African American history.

This New Negro no longer has the obligation to represent the race. Instead they are free to express themselves as individuals through their art. There are fewer restrictions on the African American because they are not as held back by the prejudice and oppression of the earlier generations. Locke’s essay has a very positive tone. I think when this essay was published it provided African Americans with hope and motivation to break free from the restrictions of the past and strive to accomplish great things. Locke was sending a message that this new generation is finally going to be able to make the contributions that they have always been capable of doing.

Passing

For this blog I decided to focus on the character of Clare. She is a very dynamic character and seems to have many layers to her. I think that understanding Clare is an important element to understanding the novel. In class we discussed Clare’s inconsideration towards others. The first sign of this inconsideration came when Clare stared at Irene to the point where it made her uncomfortable. To stare at someone without being polite enough to look away is one small example that seems to be representative of a bigger issue. Clare’s insensitivity only continued to get worse. The part in the novel where Clare invited Irene and Gertrude over to her home to meet her husband was a truly despicable scene. I could not believe that Clare would subject her friends to her husband’s racism. Clare was completely insensitive to the women’s feelings. Then when Clare wrote a letter to Irene after the incident, I was sure that she was going to apologize for her husband’s behavior but instead she only expressed her gratitude toward Irene for coming over. Clare is also a very manipulative character. I see her manipulation as a pattern that will develop throughout the novel. Clare has been able to clearly manipulate her husband into believing that she is white. She will also continue to draw Irene into her game for her own purposes.

I feel as though Clare will be exposed as a black woman to her husband by the end of the novel. By many of her actions, I almost have to say that she has it coming to her. I am very curious to finish this novel and determine what Larsen’s feelings were about the concept of passing. From what has been read so far it seems as though Larsen wants to expose the negative side of passing much like Johnson did in his novel, The Autobiography of An Ex-Coloured Man. The positive side of passing is very apparent to most people including the material advantages as well as avoiding dangerous situations. It seems to me that Larsen is choosing to portray Clare, who is consumed with material wealth and white luxuries stemming from her ability to pass, as a manipulative and vain character. I think that Larsen, like Johnson, will choose to show the emotional problems afflicting African Americans who lived their lives passing.

The Gift of Laughter

The Gift of Laughter written by Jessie Fauset was a nice change of pace. This piece of writing focused on a different aspect of the African American’s life during the Harlem Renaissance than we have been reading about and discussing in class. While I was reading this essay I found myself wondering how this idea of the African American as a comedy figure emerged. It was no doubt a way for white people to mock African Americans or portray them in a theatrical role without having to take the African American’s feelings, struggles, and thoughts into consideration. In essence, it seems to me that this may have been a way to dehumanize the African American by making him look foolish and incompetent. This essay was not the first time that I have been exposed to the portrayal of African Americans in this manner. I have heard about the minstrel shows before but I had never really understood the significance of them until reading Fauset’s essay.

I found this essay to be very interesting because Fauset highlighted the progression of African American actors and their struggles to overcome the long-standing stereotype of their traditional comedic character. Fauset voiced the African American’s frustration at being categorized into such a frivolous role when the African American’s life has been filled with tragedy and oppressive circumstances. They have so much potential to portray dramatic and substantial roles but unfortunately many of these actors were stifled by stereotypical roles imposed by the white acting community and audiences. Fauset said it best when she stated, “To be by force of circumstances the most dramatic figure in a country; to be possessed of the wells of feeling, of the most spontaneous instinct for effective action and to be shunted no less always into the role of the ridiculous and funny- that is enough to create the quality of bitterness for which we are ever so often rebuked” (165).

I liked that Fauset wrote about the negative side of this early comedic character but she also ended the essay on a positive note. Fauset saw the African American actor as now using comedy as an “emotional salvation” (166). African Americans have taken a once mocking role and turned it into one that provides the African American people with a legitimate form of art and expression giving the African American people a sense of pride and entertainment.

Cane

I found Toomer’s poems and stories in Cane to be increasingly confusing. However, one story really appealed to me. “Blood-burning moon” was one of Toomer’s most vivid and interesting stories. This story seemed to reflect many of the prominent issues effecting the South at this time. “Blood-burning moon” incorporated issues such as interracial relationships, white dominance, and violence toward African Americans. I found the title and the imagery of the moon throughout the story to be very thought provoking. In the first paragraph, Toomer stated that the moon was “an omen”. I could tell that this moon was foreshadowing trouble in the night. The blood-burning moon from the title was an amazing image for me as a reader. Throughout the story, I could picture this full, blazing moon as the events unfolded. Toomer continued to reference the moon and he also incorporated a poem into the story. The strategic placement of this poem was used as foreshadowing as well.

The use of imagery throughout this poem was very significant. There was one line that stood out to me that was particularly descriptive. Toomer states, “all over the countryside dogs barked and roosters crowed as if heralding a weird dawn or some ungodly awakening” (28). The imagery and descriptive language Toomer used to depict the town gave me a real sense that danger was ahead for Louisa. This poem evoked a lot of emotion in me and anticipation of what was to come.

One section of this poem that I found to be very interesting was when Bob Stone describes his feelings toward Louisa on page 31. Several emotions run through Bob’s head as he finds himself questioning how he should feel towards her. He finds himself feeling ashamed, embarrassed, and unsure if he should tell his family and friends about his love for an African American woman. I really liked this paragraph in the story because it is one of the only instances in this book where Toomer writes from the perspective of a white man. I also liked this part of the story because Bob was torn about his feelings for Louisa. I feel as if this uncertainty that Bob was experiencing about being in love with an African American woman occurred fairly often during this time period. This was a nice touch to the story.

McKay poems

I’ve really enjoyed these poems by Claude McKay. They all seem to capture many of the feelings that African Americans had during this time. The poems covered many of the main topics from the Harlem Renaissance including race relations, the oppression African Americans faced, a longing for their African culture, and feelings of isolation in the United States.

One of my favorite poems by McKay is Outcast. I found this to be a very powerful poem. I feel that this poem is easy for all readers to relate to because everyone has felt like an outcast at some point in their lives. Many of us have not felt the kind of isolation that McKay and other African Americans faced at this time but to a lesser degree I can definitely relate to this poem. There were several lines that stuck out above the rest. McKay states “something in me is lost, lost forever, some vital thing has gone but of my heart” (40). What I most appreciated about this poem is that McKay expressed his emotions so freely and openly. McKay is declaring to the white man that he has robbed African Americans of precious parts of who they are as a people. I feel that this is how many African Americans felt in the United States as they faced the oppression and discrimination. McKay goes on in the poem to state that “the great western world holds me in fee, and I may never hope for full release” (40). This is a truly sad outlook on the situation. McKay feels as if he and his fellow African Americans will never reclaim what has been lost to them. This poem really brought my understanding of the hardships that African Americans faced to another level.

In class this week, we discussed themes throughout McKay’s poems. There are two of his poems that struck me as having similar qualities. The Harlem Dancer and Harlem Shadows both highlight young, African American girls who are working for a living. In these poems, the girls are doing what they need to do to survive. The innocence and vulnerability of young African American girls seemed to really appeal to McKay and he expressed this through his writing. In my opinion, McKay was very distressed by the unfortunate circumstances that led young African American girls to work in degrading situations. I could really empathize with the young girl in The Harlem Dancer. McKay portrays the personal struggle that the girl is facing by stating “looking at her falsely-smiling face, I knew her self was not in that strange place” (39).

The end of Autobiography

One of the most interesting parts of the novel for me was the narrator’s experience with his wife, even though it was a very brief section in the book. The narrator was facing a major dilemma in whether or not to tell her that he is not white. As a reader, I was feeling very torn about his decision as well. I wanted him to reveal the truth to her but at the same time I didn’t want the narrator to lose the woman that he truly loved. I wasn’t sure how this situation was going to play out when the narrator told her. After he chose to tell her, I was pleasantly surprised that his girlfriend finally decided to marry him. For one of the first times in the narrator’s life, he found someone who accepted him for the mulatto man that he was.

We talked a lot in class about whether we felt sympathetic towards the narrator. I wanted to continue this discussion in my blog because I thought that it generated a lot of ideas and opinions about the topic. Personally, I can definitely feel some sympathy for the narrator. He left Europe with the intention to uplift the south and do some good through his music. However, the violence that he witnessed in seeing a black man burned alive is a horrific, life changing event. I can’t see how anyone would not be changed forever by such an event. I can only imagine the fear that any African American would have felt in witnessing the tremendous violence that plagued the south during this time. Even though the narrator took the “lesser” road so to speak in deciding to pass as a white man, he was just doing what he had to do to make a decent life for himself and his family. I can’t blame the narrator for not wanting to live his life in constant fear. The obvious downside to his decision is that he had to make many sacrifices. He knows that he had the potential to accomplish great things for himself and his race and he let it slip through his fingers. In the final paragraph of the novel he states, “I sometimes open a little box in which I still keep my fast yellowing manuscripts, the only tangible remnants of a vanished dream, a dead ambition, a sacrificed talent, I cannot repress the thought that, after all, I have chosen the lesser part, that I have sold my birthright for a mess of pottage” (211). This quote leaves me questioning whether the narrator’s decision to pass as a white man in society really made his life easier. It seems to me that he lived with so much regret and shame in abandoning his identity that he was burdened by his decision.

Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man

For my first blog I wanted to focus on the second section of The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man that we were assigned to read. I enjoyed reading this section because I liked the switch from the narrator’s proper upbringing in the first section to his time in the New York City night life where he gambled, stayed up all night, and eventually was indirectly involved with a murder. I never expected the narrator to find himself in these kinds of situations. New York, however, did not turn out to be all bad for the narrator because it enabled him to rekindle his love for music and become involved in the blossoming New York music scene. New York seemed to be a necessary experience for the narrator because it took his life in a completely different direction. One part of the novel that was very surprising was that the narrator did not look for his father while he was in New York. I expected him to take this opportunity to seek out a relationship with his father or at least attempt to find him. Then ironically, when the narrator leaves New York and goes to Europe, he runs into his father with his own sister no less. I also wonder why the narrator did not speak up and let his father know that he was right next to him in Paris. The narrator obviously would have liked nothing more than to meet his sister and connect with his father again. I found it very puzzling as to why he chose to run away.

The narrator’s time in Europe and with the “Millionaire” was a significant part of this novel. The “Millionaire” was a very interesting character. As readers we don’t know very much about him but he ends up being an important person in the narrator’s life, providing him with many opportunities and life experiences. Another important contribution of the “Millionaire” was the he ends up posing a significant question to the narrator when he is deciding whether or not he should go back to the United States or stay and travel around the world. He makes the statement, “My boy, you are by blood, by appearance, by education, and by tastes a white man. Now, why do you wan to throw your life away amidst the poverty and ignorance, in the hopeless struggle of the black people of the United States”. All of a sudden, “Millionaire” becomes this very vocal character on race relations in the United States that I did not expect. I also thought that this statement was very insightful and is representative of the major issues in this novel. I was also not all that surprised when the narrator chose to return to the United States. I could sense that he was being pulled back to the United States for a particular reason but I have not figured out the reason yet. Hopefully I will get the answers as I continue reading.

Intro

Hi, I'm Courtney Loder. I am a senior at St. Rose majoring in Special Ed/Childhood Ed. This is my last semester of classes before I start student teaching. My concentration is in American Studies. This is the second literature course that I will have taken here. I really enjoyed the first course so I decided to try another one this semester.