The people all saw her come because it was sundown. The sun was gone, but he had left his footprints in the sky. It was the time for sitting on porches beside the road.
It was the time to hear things and talk. These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes had occupied their skins. But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things. They passed nations through their mouths. They sat in judgment. Seeing the woman as she was made them remember the envy they had stored up from other times.
So they chewed up the back parts of their minds and swallowed with relish. They made burning statements with questions, and killing tools out of laughs. From here, click on "Search" and type in "Hurston" when the option to "Search Descriptive Information" comes up.
Twenty-six documents should return, most of them audio files of ballads and other folk songs Hurston collected and in many cases performs throughout the rural black communities of Florida.
Before having students embark on transcription on their own, the teacher can model a simple transcription exercise, working with the entire class as a group to show how transcription is done.
Once they feel comfortable with the rudiments of transcribing from oral performance, encourage students to browse through the other tracks if time and resources allow; it is best for them to feel ownership of a particular song and to choose that song for themselves. Teachers should be aware that these songs make reference to drinking, gambling, and sex; some, such as "Uncle Bud," are particularly ribald.
If a class is reading Their Eyes , however, then there should be very little content in the songs that isn't also in the novel. Eventually, working alone or in groups, students should select a song to work with. Teachers can direct more or less capable and confident students to longer or shorter tracks, as transcription is more difficult the longer a track gets. Allow students to listen to their chosen track multiple times, at first just paying attention to the words and the music but on successive listenings zeroing in on more performative features—tone, pacing, dynamics, and the like.
Teachers should define any of these terms that are unclear, making sure that students are clear on their meanings. Eventually, students should listen while taking notes, either using a word-processing program or a pen and notebook. Students may need to replay bits and pieces of their tracks repeatedly: that's fine, as some portions of the tracks may be more easily intelligible than others.
It may be easiest if students have access to headphones so they don't distract others or get distracted themselves. If feasible, a language lab would be an ideal environment for such an exercise. If only one or a very few computers are available, the teacher can limit the exercise to group transcription of one song together—the important thing is to get students focused on the relationship between oral performance and written text.
Next, students will transcribe their choice from among Hurston's songs using the audio recordings on the WPA site above. They should try their best to faithfully recreate its performative dimension on the printed page, just as Hurston does in many of her works.
If students have not already read aloud from Their Eyes or from Huck , now is a great time to actually have them read the words not as they would sound translated into so-called standard English, but as the spelling and arrangement of those words literally suggest. Discuss the various tactics authors use to recreate the sounds of various dialects and speech features when writing. Students may have already transcribed their chosen songs into "standard" English, but they should also attempt to transcribe them into appropriate eye dialect—either have them revise a "standard" English transcription or, if time is short, transcribe directly into eye dialect.
Once students have finished their transcriptions, have them trade transcriptions with other students or transcribing groups, and try to read one another's transcriptions aloud. Which transcriptions are most phonetically accurate? Which are closest to "standard" written English? Where did two students or groups of students make different choices in transcribing the same oral text?
Having a student read the eye dialect transcription of a song she hasn't heard and then playing the song to see how close the two pronunciations and readings is a great way of getting students to think about the relationship between oral and written language and literature.
Next, share with students some of Hurston' s own transcriptions: her seminal collection of black Southern folklore, the anthology Mules and Men , available as an e-text from American Studies at the University of Virginia.
Mules and Men contains Hurston's transcriptions of some of the folksongs archived at the Florida WPA site, including "Mule on de Mount" and "Let the Deal Go Down," so if students chose either of those songs, a comparison may be illustrative. Remind students that Hurston's patrons and audience were largely composed of white Northern scholars and writers—do they think she watered down or, conversely, exaggerated any features of dialect for her audience's sake?
If so, did she make the right choice? Who, in students' opinions, was the target audience for the novel? Activity 3. Hurston and Storytelling Having crafted written transcriptions of texts first encountered in oral form, students may enjoy converting one of Hurston's already-transcribed texts into a live performance.
An excellent choice from American Studies is the etiological folktale " Why Women Always Take Advantage of Men " which not only contains some excellent examples of pacing, dialect, and tone, but comments on gender relations in a manner very germane to Their Eyes. Students may wish to act out the story in groups like a play, or they may want to practice creating different voices, postures, and gestures for each of the characters in the story God, the Devil, Man, and Woman. In any case, make sure to instruct the audience i.
Which characters, scenes, and lines were most effective from the audience's point of view? How did the performance choices made contribute to the theme or message of the folktale?
If time permits, the teacher can break the class into groups, assigning each group a folktale, which they are to perform as a group to the rest of the class, and which only the teacher and they have seen in advance.
Readers can better understand such underlying issues by exploring both background and literary elements of Their Eyes Were Watching God. First off, readers need to understand and analyze background elements in order to understand the novel. If readers understand background and literary elements then it will be easier to read, understand, and retain the information coming from the novel. Hurston was an American Novelist that wrote seven books, including essays, plays, and more than short stories.
Hurston moved with her family to Eatonville, Florida. Eatonville was a town where many African-Americans lived, and would often be described as a place where African-Americans lived as they pleased. Zora Neale Hurston was known for her contributions to African-American literature, portrayal of racial struggles in the South, and her ability to tell stories. These stories included humor, love, family, slavery, faith, and community. Hurston received many compliments as well as criticism for her work by both blacks and whites.
Some writers of the Harlem Renaissance criticized her for writing about black culture instead of the relations between races. However, Hurston did not care and said that the richness of black culture existed to be appreciated, celebrated, and made into literature. Today, Zora Neale Hurston will always be remembered as one of the most influential contributors to the Harlem Renaissance period. She influenced other African-American writers and will never be forgotten for all the work she has done.
While in Eatonville, Janie starts to fall out of love with Joe and begins to feel oppressed by him. After Joe dies, Janie meets a man named Tea Cake. Tea Cake then convinces Janie to leave Eatonville and go to the Muck with him. While in the Muck she begins to feel free, natural, and independent, as if she belonged there all along. Janie is beyond happy because she can do whatever she wants with the man she loves. Shmoop Editorial Team. It can be classified as a novel, as well as fiction, literary fiction, or psychological fiction.
However, this novel is an example of bildungsroman. Therefore, readers need to understand the plot of the story to be able to understand what the novel is about. Plot is the main events of a novel. Without a plot there would be no conflict, which would result in no story.
The ability to identify elements of the novel helps reading comprehension and a deeper understanding, as well as appreciation for the novel. At the beginning of the story, Janie Crawford returns to Eatonville, and her old friends wonder where she has been. She tells her love story to her friend, Pheoby Watson. Janie was first married to an old, unattractive man named Logan Killicks by her Nanny. Nanny taught Janie that a marriage where you are provided for is better than a romantic one.
However, Janie was not happy with him, so she decides to run away with a man named Joe Starks in hopes of finding true love. Joe Starks takes Janie to an African American town named Eatonville where he buys land and becomes mayor. Eventually, Janie gets so angry at Joe for making her separate from the townspeople of Eatonville that she lashes out at him. Joe then hits her across the face. Their relationship is broken and Janie starts to fall out of love with him.
Joe then grows ill and dies. Janie inherits his wealth and meets a younger man named Tea Cake. Janie falls in love with him, so they get married and move to the Everglades together.
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