Analysis Of `` No One `` By Zora Neale Hurston And Toni...

â€Å"No one says a novel has to be one thing† according to Ishmael Reed. Literature, he says, can be whatever it wants to be. While it is true that the nature of literature is flux, to agree or disagree with his sentiments is the very core of an ancient debate: how is literature to be critiqued. Literary theory is wide—its proponents range from deconstructionism and structuralism to aestheticism, and culturalism, flowing through queer theory, gender theory, and race theory to name a few subsets of the latter. The diversity in this theory is easily explained, as it stems from the own diversity of writers and works that have been produced. The identities of these works and their writers, however, becomes very important when choosing a method to interpret and analyse their art. Tackling the works of black female writers such as Alice Walker, Zora Neale Hurston, and Toni Morrison; and their respective magna opera, The Color Purple, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and The Blu est Eye, it is impossible to forget how their identities informed these narratives, especially when discussing a method for criticism. It is unsurprising that these works share many features, based on a strict ethos that places the narratives of black women as written, revealed, and imagined by black women authors. Themes, language use, and structure, inter alia, are common in these novels; it is hard to find one more important than another. Nevertheless, these seem to be connected by a common structural form: theShow MoreRelatedSweat and Gilded Six-Bits by Zora Neale Hurston: A Closer Look3081 Words   |  13 PagesThe Harlem Renaissance marked the coming out of many brilliant black authors and thinkers. Names like Jessie Redmon Fauset, Alain Locke, Ralph Waldo Ellison, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston marked the scene. Hurton portrays many messages in her stories without having to explicitly spell it out. This among other reasons make Hurstons writing so rich. Two of her almost fable-like stories, Sweat and The Gilded Six-Bits, each portray powerful messages individually. In Sweat, you get aRead More The H arlem Renaissance Essay1513 Words   |  7 Pagespeople. Chapter 3 What works or events had a great impact on the Harlem Renaissance?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the early 1920s, three works signaled the new creative energy in African American literature. McKay’s volume of poetry, Harlem Shadows (1922), became one of the first works by a black writer to be published by a mainstream, national publisher (Harcourt, Brace and Company). Cane (1923), by Jean Toomer, was an experimental novel that combined poetry and prose in documenting the life of American blacksRead MoreBrief Summary of the Harlem Renaissance.1863 Words   |  8 Pages1920s by describing the reality of black life in America and the struggle for racial identity. In the early 1920s three works signaled the new creative energy in African American literature. McKays volume of poetry, Harlem Shadows (1922), became one of the first works by a black writer to be published by a mainstream, national publisher (Harcourt, Brace and Company). Cane (1923), by Jean Toomer, was an experimental novel that combined poetry and prose in documenting the life of American blacksRead MoreBlack Naturalism and Toni Morrison: the Journey Away from Self-Love in the Bluest Eye8144 Words   |  33 Pagespostmodernism with its emphasis on race, class and gender, but the theory of naturalism as well: the idea that one s social and physical environments can drastically affect one s nature and potential for surviving and succeeding in this world. In this article, I will explore Toni Morrison s The Bluest Eye from a naturalistic perspective; however, while doing so I will propose that because Morrison s novels are distinctly black and examine distinctly black issues, we mu st expand or deconstruct the traditionalRead MoreThe Discourse Community Of The English Subject2328 Words   |  10 Pageswho help to make it up. In the discourse community of English some of these people include author and playwright William Shakespeare, author Mark Twain, author and poet Jane Austen , and a slew of famous African-American authors some including Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Lorraine Hansberry, and poet Maya Angelou. African American Literature: Urban Fiction The aspect of the English discourse community I will be focusing on in my report is Urban Fiction. Urban fiction is a subgenre of theRead MoreAmerican Dream in a Raisin in the Sun4319 Words   |  18 Pagesscuffle. At Cliftons funeral, the narrator rallies crowds to win back his former widespread Harlem support and delivers a rousing speech, but he is censured by the Brotherhood for praising a man who would sell such dolls. Walking along the street one day, the narrator is spotted by Ras and roughed up by his men. He buys sunglasses and a hat as a disguise, and is mistaken for a man named Rinehart in a number of different scenarios: first, as a lover, then, a hipster, a gambler, a briber, and, finallyRead MoreCalculus Oaper13589 Words   |  55 Pagesthe more general theoretical question: Is adult sexuality so closely associated with the infant bond that genuinely satisfying sex relations are likely to be structured primarily around nurturance? I Biologically men have only one innate orientation--a sexual one that draws them to women--while women have two innate orientations, sexual toward men and reproductive toward their young.(1)    I was a woman terribly vulnerable, critical using femaleness as a sort of standard of yardstick to measureRead MoreLiterary Criticism : The Free Encyclopedia 7351 Words   |  30 Pages(1919) This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1920)[28] The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (1924). Pather Panchali, by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay (1929)[29] Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell (1936) Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (1936) Native Son by Richard Wright (1940) A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (1943) The Green Years by A. J. Cronin (1944) The Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger (1951)[30] The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (for plot character EustaceRead MoreOne Significant Change That Has Occurred in the World Between 1900 and 2005. Explain the Impact This Change Has Made on Our Lives and Why It Is an Important Change.163893 Words   |  656 PagesISTORY In the series Critical Perspectives on the Past, edited by Susan Porter Benson, Stephen Brier, and Roy Rosenzweig Also in this series: Paula Hamilton and Linda Shopes, eds., Oral History and Public Memories Tiffany Ruby Patterson, Zora Neale Hurston and a History of Southern Life Lisa M. Fine, The Story of Reo Joe: Work, Kin, and Community in Autotown, U.S.A. Van Gosse and Richard Moser, eds., The World the Sixties Made: Politics and Culture in Recent America Joanne Meyerowitz, ed