After Matt Null’s presentation, I was entertained by the creative writings of the famous novelist and short story writer Edward P. Jones. His presentation began with one of his associates introducing him as one of the greatest writers in contemporary America writing on the struggles African Americans faced in the nation’s history. In his presentation, Jones read to us two of his newest short stories The Devil Swims Across the Anacostia River and In The Blink of God’s Eye. Jones used outstanding imagery, but what I took note of most was the particular way he used dialog to describe his characters subliminally. He would use intense descriptive details to describe a scene’s environment and perhaps the outfits of his characters, but Jones took
In his "Whiskey Speech", Sweat's purpose was to appease people on both sides of the whiskey argument. One way he does this is by using pathos to elicit an emotion of distaste from his audience. When talking about why he is against whiskey, Sweat refers to whiskey as the "devil's brew", the "poison scourge", and the "evil drink". These words have a negative connotation and connect emotionally with the people in the audience that have a strong dislike for whiskey. Sweat also uses parallel structure to explain why he supports whiskey.
In 1773, there were slaves all over colonial America working in plantations, and cleaning their masters houses. It wasn’t common for a slave to be writing poetry with their owners consent. Phyllis Wheatley’s success as the first African American published poet was what inspired generations to tell her story. It was her intellectual mind and point of view that made her different from others, both black and white. Phyllis’s story broke the barrier for all African American writers, and proved that no matter the gender or race, all human beings are capable of having an intelligent state of mind.
In Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “Sweat” and her essay “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” the African American social group is being represented in many ways. The texts have similar ways that African Americans are represented for the time period. The African Americans or “colored people” are represented in an aspect that comes from the author's point of view. The African Americans are represented as being unbothered, growing up in a closed community, playing the game with whites, and optimistic.
Harsh stereotypes created misjudgment and tension throughout society, which demonstrated that there was a departure from the Harlem Renaissance, as seen in Zora Neale Hurston’s
How does Hill create a powerfully dramatic sense of fear and tension in this extract? In Susan Hill 's book "I 'm the King of the Castle", some of the main themes are tension and fear. Hill uses many literary techniques to create a heinous and dramatic atmosphere (following the theme of gothic literature), while still keeping a sense of dark excitement. Kingshaw 's fears and feelings are conveyed using a selection of linguistic techniques, letting the reader see deep into his thoughts.
It is very difficult to be able to write a piece so beautifully by giving it life using the dialect so preciously giving the reader the sense of living in that time period. The story contains grammar and sentence structure we use as we speak to one another. The way it’s written and read is very obvious, no one can deny that, but looking closely at the words as they come to life by giving them a persona of their own is completely hidden from the text. For example, when Joe and Missie were playing with each other in the kitchen and as Missie searches his pockets Joe says, “Missie May, take yo’ hand out mah pocket!” looking at that sentence right there we can tell there is a lot of spelling errors
In the short story Sweat written by Zora Neale Hurston, she tells the story of a hard-working woman named Delia Jones and her abusive, cheating husband Sykes. Delia and Sykes are drastically different characters. Delia is an honest, church going woman, who cleans white people 's laundry to make ends meet and Skyes is a low-down womanizer who uses his wife 's income to support not only himself but also Bertha the woman he is having an affair with. After years of putting up with her husband 's mistreatment, Delia finally holds her ground. She defends her job with a skillet.
Before I began reading, I tried guessing what the story was about. Only knowing that the title was “Sweat”, I thought the story might be about sports or hard labor. Then I opened up the story and the first thing I noticed was that the author’s name was Zora Hurston. I only found out that the author was female once I saw “her” in the section below describing her life and writing career. I found out other important things such as she lived in Florida, she wrote during the Harlem Renaissance (1920s), she died impoverished, and her work was eventually found by the women’s movement.
Origins and Evolution to the American Southern Dialect North America is home to a large variety of English dialects and accents. Dialects may be separated by area, referred to as regional dialect. These regions may be plotted geographically, such as done in “The Atlas of North American English”. Figure 1 Provided by “The Atlas of North American English Methods and Findings.”
The author uses a limited amount of diction throughout the book, because she wanted to keep the main focus on the character. “A particularly repugnant guard was known as sh*thead,”(210). This example of diction describes how everyone felt about the guard. She uses the diction to give the reader a better thought about what was going on throughout the book. “For the umpteenth time, Louie cursed whoever had stocked the raft,” (164).
The poem “Harlem” seems like a simple poem that talks about a dream that fades away. The poem is more symbolic than it seems though. The three sentences that have a huge impact on this poem’s symbolism are spread out through the poem. A reader needs to keep in mind that the speaker is talking about a dream in these sentences. “Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?”
In contrary though, they sometimes write about matters happening around them. The poet Terrance Hayes from South Carolina, has a very literal poem called “Talk”. The poem “Talk”, is about a young African American boy in middle school. This boy is on his school’s basketball team.
Historical criticism strives to cognize a literary work by examining the social, cultural, and intellectual context that essentially includes the artist’s biography and milieu. Historical critics are more concerned with guiding readers through the use of identical connotation rather than analyzing the work’s literary significance. (Brizee and Tompkins). The journey of a historical reading begins with the assessment of how the meaning of a text has altered over time. In many cases, when the historical context of a text is not fully comprehended, the work literature cannot be accurately interpreted.
I think the meanings of these mistakes are that the narrator will show the readers how hard the black people have it in Harlem. The reason to the mistakes might be to show us that the black people are dumb and can’t spell, because there’s so many who doesn’t have a job, and therefore their kids can’t come to school. Otherwise the language might be effected by the common use of slang in the ghetto’s. When I draw parallels to the text “American skin (41shots) “ It reminds me of the old Mrs. Davis who is really concerned about her son every time there is any kind of crime in Harlem (Page 18 line 20-22). This also appears in “American skin” because Lena is worried about her son going to school.
