Mayahuel's Discussion of African American Literature 2019

I noticed there was a lot of discussion surrounding Morrison's choice to use supernatural elements in her book. in many class discussions, the theme of how"nothing ever dies" frequently came up and led me to think about the meaning behind the Ghost of Beloved. As I read the book, there were several moments where Morrison illustrated how nothing ever died. In Sethe's "rememories", nothing ever went away. All the trauma Paul D locks up his heart (his tin can) never really goes away as well and later on both Sethe and Paul D have to face their traumas that resurface. In this way, I think it's interesting to think about slavery in that context. Although many people like to dismiss the effects of slavery as an "event of the past" that "happened 400 years ago" and people need to "get over" the effects have tremendous impacts on people that we are still dealing with. The fact that Morrison forces her readers to have this view of sl...

As we discussed Wright's criticism of "their eyes were watching god", I couldn't help but think about his comment on Hurston's writing as a form of entertainment for white people, similar to minstrel shows. The comment kept popping back in my head the longer I thought about her writing and what I'd gotten from it. In a way, I understood what Wright was saying, but I also wondered if there could've been a deliberate purpose for her portrayal of such "minstrel like" displays of the black community in the Muck. In reading wrights criticism of Hurston's novel, I could see the points he made on the sort of overemphasized idealized nature of the Muck although the people there were working on a white plantation every day. This idea of them being so happy to work there seemed odd to me but I didn't take it as a form of comedic play on Black culture in the sense Wright took it, pointing out the centuries of history behind whites taking Black cul...