She also seemed greatly influenced by The Great Depression. She speaks about race with literal ease and uses language to describe situations that can leave you breathless. Her best work, in my opinion, is her work of literature entitled, "How it Feels to Be Colored Me." She offers a candid, truthful, down to earth, and even, humorous explanation of her colored life in a Negro town of Eatonville, Florida. But her deepest words are, "But I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sorrow school of Negrohood who hold that nature has somehow given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world -- I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife." This quote was powerful too, "At certain times I have no race, I am me." These thoughts are extremely powerful identity shaping realizations that speak to her transcending a black generation and a black culture that looked to point to the sorrow, she tried to point more to the joy, the pride of being from a Negro town, a pride in her heritage and identity as a black woman. Her boldness in this lyrical confession and her ability to speak truth in her writings is to be greatly admired and esteemed. She has made an effect on the world through her writings that I believe is for the better, for the good of society. Giving life to her race and taking what was broken and making it beautiful.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
How It Feels to Be Colored Me-Hurston
Hurston's background is that she was born in Alabama and moved with her family to an all-black town in Eatonville, Florida. Her father was a baptist preacher who you could tell probably had a great deal of influence on her life to speak with so much eloquence, power, and truth. But she was known for her high spirits. When she sought her degree at Howard University, she gathered a reputation for telling stories as a genius storyteller. She was known for telling stories about her childhood with a high level of wit, fun, and charm. She was a master conversationalist telling of side-splitting tales that captured the hearts of many. Her writings also seek to communicate the longings, passions, secrets, hidden desires, sorrows of the black culture of the time. However, well off white people were the main sponsors of and the chief audience of her work so there was this sort of paradoxical, tension going on that she had to live through. Her work was not popular with the male intellectual leaders of the community. She quarreled with famous writer, poet Langston Hughes because she rejected the idea that a black writers chief concern should be how blacks are portrayed to the white reader. She did not write to "uplift her race," because in her view it was already uplifted, which is a powerful and bold statement into the testimony of her character.
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Denton, I found that this piece caught my attention the most out of all her writings as well. I really think her passion about her race and her confidence exudes from "How It Feels to Be Colored Me." I found that this piece connected really well with her biography - especially the comments and disagreements with Langston Hughes.
ReplyDeleteI think that Hurston's skill in realistically portraying people is of great value to literature and to anyone who reads her work. I admire her courage in going against the strong male opinion of what her work ought to be, and her perseverance despite obstacles. However, I do think it is a bit premature to make judgments about what her best work was based upon a twenty page assignment.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Hurston really brings it home with this poem. I found her description of the jazz bar very telling in how she identifies the differences among races. While she physically expresses her enthralling feelings of the jazz music playing, the white man sits motionless smoking his cigar. They both are expressing their enjoyment of the music in different ways, but still share that common joy. Hurston write with a lot of maturity as she identifies cultural differences on a common ground level.
ReplyDeleteAt times though I did not know whether she was being sarcastic or genuine. When she says, "Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It's beyond me." I cannot imagine not being somewhat angry when discriminated against and the latter part of the sentence makes me believe she is being a bit tongue-in-cheek. Regardless, Hurston presents an important lesson for all races to consider.