1. Modernism: Finding Meaning In Their Eyes Were Watching God

2y ago
20 Views
2 Downloads
336.17 KB
5 Pages
Last View : 17d ago
Last Download : 2m ago
Upload by : Annika Witter
Transcription

Day Four1. Modernism: Finding Meaning in Their Eyes Were WatchingGodBesides being a key member of the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston alsobelonged to the group of great 20th-century American Modernists. In the1940s, her dream was to join Scribner’s, which published Hemingway,Fitzgerald, Wolfe, and Rawlings. She finally achieved her goal in 1947 whenfamed Scribner’s editor, Maxwell Perkins, accepted Seraph on the Suwanee.Unfortunately, he died two months later, and Hurston was denied the chanceto work with him.Along with the other Scribner’s authors, Hurston shared many of thesame Modernist characteristics. After their experiences with World War I,they searched for meaning in a post-WWI world, which they viewed as awaste land (read T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land).Definition of Modernism: Modernism is an early 20th-century artisticmovement that attempted to develop a response to the social, political, andeconomic breakdown that occurred as a result of World War I. Characteristics:Modernist works are autonomous and represent self-containedworlds/systems/metanarratives of their own. Artists often borrow such asystem in order to structure their work, in face of the chaos andbreakdown of contemporary life. An example is James Joyce's Ulysses,which is based on Homer's Odyssey.The work of art should be unique and represent the cultural avant-gardein such a way that it shocks the bourgeoisie.Works of art are fragmented and notable for what's missing, i.e.,explanations, connections, and summaries that provide continuity,perspective, and security. Art represents the discontinuous universe.Modernist artists believe that art is meaningful. The decline in religion ledartists to seek spiritual meanings in art.Therefore, the artist has a sacred role to search for poetic illuminationamong the philistines. This venture often led to a feeling of alienation.[from The Norton Anthology of American Literature, “Modernism”]For purposes of contrast, postmodernism can also be discussed:

Definition from Jean-Francois Lyotard in The Postmodern Condition:“Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity towardsmetanarratives. This incredulity is undoubtedly a product of progress inthe sciences: but that progress in turn presupposes it . . . The narrativefunction is losing its functors, its great hero, its great dangers, its greatvoyages, its great goal. It is being dispersed in clouds of narrativelanguage elements—narrative, but also denotative, prescriptive,descriptive, and so on . . . Thus the society of the future falls less withinthe province of a Newtonian anthropology (such as structuralism orsystems theory) than a pragmatics of language particles. There are manydifferent languages games—a heterogeneity of elements.Linda Hutcheon:"Postmodernism is a contradictory phenomenon that uses and abuses,installs and then subverts, the very concepts it challenges—be it literature,painting, sculpture, film video, dance, television, music, philosophy,aesthetic theory, psychoanalysis, linguistics of historiography" (LindaHutcheon).[Note: One of the most significant patrons of postmodernist works ofarchitecture is Disney].The great modernist work is T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, published afterWorld War I. All great Modernist works, including Ernest Hemingway’s TheSun Also Rises, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and James Joyce’s Ulysses,deal metaphorically with the theme of the blighted land and the sick Fisherking. Restoration comes with the return of water. At the end of The WasteLand, rain finally falls to restore the land as the narrator is fishing by the sideof a river.In our postmodernist world, each reader can take the signs found in a textand interpret them in any way he or she wishes. The reader becomes theauthor (see Jacques Derrida, “The Death of the Author”). Common criticalapproaches include historical, gender-based, reader-response, etc. Followingare ways to regard the ending of Their Eyes Were Watching God and reflectupon Hurston’s worldview.

II.Approaches to Meaning in the NovelA. Historical ApproachThe hurricane marks the turning point in Janie Crawford’s life. Hernew state of empowerment is a direct result of the hurricane’s power. Thestorm as a metaphor has always symbolized creation and regeneration,because it involves the mingling of the elements. By uniting the fourelements—air (wind), water (rain), fire (rays of light), which disturb thefourth element, earth—the hurricane suggests cosmic synergy. Primitivepeoples, such as early Native Americans, worshipped the hurricane as a“deity of the winds and waters, and also of the heavens.”Hurston based her storm on three hurricanes in 1927, 1928, and1935. The 1928 category-four hurricane overflowed Lake Okeechobee and1800 migrant workers drowned. Hurston experienced firsthand the 1929hurricane in the Bahamas. She recalls: “It was horrible in its intensity andduration. I saw dead people washing around on the streets when it wasover.” Hurston was in New York during the 1935 hurricane, the worst inrecorded history. It was a category-five hurricane with sustained winds of200 miles per hour and gusts of 250 mph. It was so forceful that the sky litup, ignited by particles of sand hitting each other to create electric sparks.Many of the 408 people who died were sandblasted to death.Hurston personifies the storm in her novel: “The monstropolousbeast had left its bed. . . . The sea was walking the earth with a heavy heel”(53). It takes a catastrophe of such magnitude to bring Janie in touch withGod as the creator of earthly disturbances and maker of destinies.B. Gender ApproachDirections: Divide students into groups and ask them to interpretthe following quotations, citing examples from the novel:“It is, however, not mere men who oppress in this novel butideology—the ponderous presence of an overarching system ofpatriarchal domination” (Ann DuCille).“Hurston has motivated her narrative, perhaps unconsciously, toact out her rage against male domination and to free Janie, a figure forherself, from all men” (Dianne Sadoff).

“Tea Cake’s death represented the closure necessary for Janie’s andHurston’s psychospiritual freedom. It also acquired an autocephalousstatus for Hurston. She was freed from external, patriarchal control. Nolonger entrapped by gender roles and expectations, she and Janie canfollow wherever the inside urge leads” (Deborah Plant).Next, discuss Janie’s search for identity, which becomes her rite ofpassage. Arnold Van Gennep in Rites of Passage explains how these stagesdevelop:1. Separation from a fixed, “normal” condition.2. Movement through a “timeless” and “statusless” marginality.[i.e. the muck].3. Reincorporation into a new, fixed social state with a new status.Referring to Van Gennep’s stages, Houston Baker applies them tothe Afro-American experience: Stage 1: The black person separates from the dominant whiteculture [as in Ellison’s Invisible Man]. Stage 2: Renewal of desire, receipt of ancestral wisdom,negation of dominant culture’s schemes of re-(w)riting (andrighting) history. Stage 3: Reintegration, with a new status and awareness of anenduring black difference.Discussion Questions1. Discuss the symbolism in the novel. Explain the significance of thetitle in relation to the novel’s themes.2. What is Janie’s state of mind at the end of the novel? Has shetranscended patriarchy? According to Houston Baker, she istransforming into a blues singer. Do you agree that she is becoming anartist, by examining the last paragraph of the novel?3. On the other hand, another critic claims that she has contracted rabiesand is preparing to die. What do you think of her fate?

Works CitedBaker, Houston, Jr. Blues, Ideology, and Afro-American Literature. Chicago: U.Chicago P, 1984.DuCille, Ann. The Coupling Convention: Sex, Text, and Tradition in BlackWomen’s Fiction. NY: Oxford, 1993.Plant, Deborah. “Every Tub Must Sit on Its Own Bottom”: The Philosophy andPolitics of Zora Neale Hurston. Urbana: U. of Illinois P., 1995.

1. Modernism: Finding Meaning in Their Eyes Were Watching God Besides being a key member of the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston also belonged to the group of great 20th-century American Modernists. In the 1940s, her dream was to join Scribner’s, which published Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Wolfe, and Rawlings. She finally achieved her goal in 1947 when

Related Documents:

Modernism was a revolt against the conservative values of realism.[2] [3] [4] Arguably the most paradigmatic motive of modernism is the rejection of tradition and its reprise, incorporation, rewriting, recapitulation, revision and parody in new forms.[5] [6] [7] Modernism rejected the lingering certainty of Enlightenment thinking and also

Capacitors 5 – 6 Fault Finding & Testing Diodes,Varistors, EMC capacitors & Recifiers 7 – 10 Fault Finding & Testing Rotors 11 – 12 Fault Finding & Testing Stators 13 – 14 Fault Finding & Testing DC Welders 15 – 20 Fault Finding & Testing 3 Phase Alternators 21 – 26 Fault Finding & Testing

The spaces of modernism and, indeed, the borders of the field have always been up for debate, for modernism itself was characterized by an ethos of inquiry, uncertainty, and contradiction. As Michael Coyle notes, “Modernism has always been more than a neutral descriptor, and has invariably provoked contest” (17). According to Friedman, the

avant-garde (“use of puns, allusions, phrases in foreign languages, arcane and fractured forms”) (156). Modernisms “Although modernism can be clearly identified as a distinctive movement, in . Modernism and The Great Gatsb

Music 467: Mahler, Modernism, and the Symphony . Senior Seminar, Monday: 1:30-3:20 SML 107Music: -analytical studies of Mahler’s Nos. 1Symphonies-3 considered in the context of an emerging European musical “modernism,” ca. 18851905. (A final - paper could involve your

Modernism & The Great Gatsby Unit Schedule *To access the great Gatsby go to my website – reyesafhs.weebly.com Date Lesson in Class Homework Mon. 4/22 (A) In-class: Share poems! 1920’s Presentations work day Bring FINAL DRAFT of poem next time! Finish 1920’s slides 4/24 (A) In-class: 1920’s Presentations Pick up novels Modernism .

Another example of an attempt to characterize modernism in terms of a basic list of features – a recent one that received considerable attention given the prominence of its author – is the one found in Peter Gay‘s Modernism: The Lure of Heresy from Baudelaire to Beckett and Beyond (Gay 2007). For G

Adolf Hitler revealed everything in Mein Kampf and the greater goals made perfect sense to the German people. They were willing to pursue those goals even if they did not agree with everything he said. History can be boring to some, but do not let the fact that Mein Kampf contains a great deal of history and foreign policy fool you into thinking it is boring This book is NOT boring. This is .