Theme Of Incident In A Rose Garden, By Zora Neale Hurston

Since the beginning of time, people have always wondered where they would go after they die. Did they live a worthy life and deserve everlasting paradise, or did they live a life worthy of eternal suffering? Zora Neale Hurston and Donald Justice, through the poem "Incident in a Rose Garden" and the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God treat the subject of a common fate. While both authors convey a common theme, Hurston emphasizes the difference in racial privileges, while Justice highlights the difference in social privileges. Although both authors display similar themes, Hurston and Justice use symbolism and alliteration respectively. Both authors utilize personification to highlight the common theme.

Hurston and Justice use personification to display the superiority of a higher power over humans. In the latter part of Hurston’s novel, the newly wedded Tea Cake and Janie are in the “Muck” of Florida working and living a fulfilling life. The news of a hurricane coming spreads through the town and the couple, along with a few others, decide to stay. The

The husband of the couple--Tea Cake-- is tasked by a white man to bury the dead bodies from the hurricane along with the other black men. Initially, the men dump all the bodies into the same graves, regardless of race. One of the white men eventually stops this and argues that the government is “makin’ coffins [for] all [of] the White folks”(Hurston 171). When asked if the African Americans got coffins he negates it. Tea Cake challenges this and asks “[what] difference [does] it make [about] the color? [They] all need buryin’ in a hurry”(Hurston 171). This point made by Tea Cake is important because it exhibits the symbolism of the graves according to race. There is no need to separate the dead because they are dead. Tea Cake was trying to portray the point that regardless of race, everyone suffers the same