Unlike most of the slaves whose lives were wiped off, Jacobs knew herself and her family pretty well. She didn’t even know she was a slave before the age six which was very rare. "[We] lived together in a comfortable home," she wrote in her autobiography, "and, though we were all slaves, I was so fondly shielded that I never dreamed that I was a piece of merchandise." Even after her mother died, her mistress took care of her so that she could still have a good time. It didn’t last
In life we face difficult periods but those times reflect us who we are. In the novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zola Neale Hurston there was a girl, Janie who went through many obstacles growing up. Janie’s upbringing affected her life choices by looking for love, being raised strictly, and not knowing that she was colored. She also had relationships that did not end well. Janie grew to learn how to go through struggles and overcome them.
But her journey toward enlightenment is not undertaken alone. The gender differences that Hurston espouses require that men and women provide each other things that they need but do not possess. Janie views fulfilling relationships as reciprocal and based on mutual respect, as demonstrated in her relationship with Tea Cake, which elevates Janie into an equality noticeably absent from her marriages to Logan and Jody. Although relationships are implied to be necessary to a fulfilling life, Janie’s quest for spiritual fulfillment is fundamentally a self-centered one. She is alone at the end yet seems content.
Paul Comaskey World literature Professor Chisunka In the classic novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Hurston, Hurston has given unique distinctions on how three different men treat Janie and the effectiveness this will bring throughout Janie’s journey of life. Janie’s grandmother raised her as she grew into a woman. Nanny sparks Janie’s journey, to insure that she receives financial stability through marriage and she will not end up like her mother. Through the novel Janie wants independence but Nanny had different plans for Janie too marry right away. These three men Zora Hurston labels, play an enormous role in Janie’s life long pursuit for independence and to truly find herself.
The last character I feel is important in this story is Nanny Crawford, she is Janie’s grandmother. Mrs. Crawford raised Janie, she worked as a slave and the things she experienced made her a strong black woman. She wanted Janie to be responsible and understand everything she needed to know about money, love, and just being responsible. Janie didn’t’ like the way her grandmother tried to raise her because she independent and wanted to love who she wanted to love. She didn’t want to marry because of money but because she loved him.
As a result, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl occupies a crucial place in the history of American women's literature in general and African American women's literature in particular. Published in the North, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl proved that until slavery was overthrown, only expatriate southern women writers, such as Jacobs and her contemporary, Angelina Grimke Weld, who left South Carolina to speak out against slavery in the South, could write freely about social problems in the
Marcellus Fairley Prof John Jackson ENG111 11/12/12 “Sweat” – Zora Neal Hurston “... You don't have to wait for someone to treat you bad repeatedly. All it takes is once, and if they get away with it that once, if they know they can treat you like that, then it sets the pattern for the future.” ― Jane Green Sometimes you might just want to kill him; your life becomes suddenly worthless each day she realizes that with each stroke of his painful words she becomes less than nothing, but something tells you that eventually it will subside. Throughout “Sweat” conflict with the married couple is increased. While Delia is a “good” woman and goes to church and works hard for the white people
Outside Reading Form/Structure Plot: Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, dances around Janie Crawford’s endeavor to aspire to her dreams and pursue happiness in her life. The novel is a narration of Janie Crawford’s progression through life, with the use of extended flashbacks presented through friend Pheoby and is organized in a timely matter. Although the beginning starts off with Janie being old and stuff, the next pages goes back to Janie’s life from where she was born and how she got to the place she was sitting now. The novel focuses on Janie’s relationships and thoughts as she travels in the search for love, freedom and happiness. The novel begins when Janie starts to tell her life story to her best friend
Joe and Logan had a big influence on how Janie could not trust Tea Cake at first. She showed Tea Cake she had some problems by saying, “It’s all right tuh come teach me, but don’t come tuh cheat me.”(pg.96) She was showing Tea Cake that she wasn’t a rookie in the relationship game. If Tea Cake was going to try and make a fool out of Janie she wasn’t going to let that happen. Tea Cake coming along really didn’t have a effect on her self-identity at first. Tea Cake did everything differently than Joe.
Speaking to the Friar Lawrence of the suggestion to use dead/undead poison, Juliet replies, “Give me, give me! O tell me not of fear”(IV.iv.121) One can see that Juliet is a quick, and not so thought out thinker when she is desperate. “What if it be a poison which the friar/subtly hath minister’d to have me dead/Lest in this marriage he should be dishonoured/Because he married me before to Romeo?/I fear it is, and yet me thinks it should not?”(IV.iii.24-28) Momentarily one can see that Juliet does think of consequences, but she always lets herself believe that everything is for the best. She easily convinces herself that it all will work out in the end. Thought when things do not work out and Juliet finds Romeo dead, she abruptly makes the decision to kill herself.