Why Study the harlwm Renaissance?

This course has taught me a lot about the Harlem Ranaissance. I hesitated to take the course because I really had no idea what it would be about. However, I'm glad that I did choose to thatke the course. I have learned a lot and have gained an entirely new perspective.

I think that all to often African Americans are viewed using the sterotyped. They are viewd as lazy and uneducated, etc. I think that the Harlem Renaissance really proves those steroetypes wrong. Just look at all the literature, art, and music that came out of the Renaissance. How can we say that these people are lazy and uneducated when we have seen firthand through our study of certian literary pieces that these stereoypes are clearly untrue. I think we study the Harlem Renaissance to remind ourselves and share with others the amazing contrubutions African Americans have made and hopefully by doing this we can ease the racial divide and lessen the discrimination faced by these people.

Their Eyes Were Watching God 2

While reading this book I found the main character, Janie to be an interesting one. I kind of assumed that Zora Neale Hurston would write her book with a strong female character. It just seemed like something she would do seeing as she was a black female writer in a time where neither blacks or women recieved a lot of credit for the things they did. Knowing this I naturally assumed that she would portray Janie as a strong character. I was disappointed in the beginning to see that Janie really wasn't a very strong character. She didn't stick up to her grandmother when she married he off. She didn't stick up to her husband when her treated her unfairly, she didn't stick up for herself when one of her husbands stole from her. She really didn't stick up for herself at all. She was just trying to fit into the steretypical role of a housewife. I was pleasantly surprised though when she finaly did stick up for herself. We see the example of her standing up for herself on page 79. This is the point where I relaized that Zora Neale Hurston had in fact made Janie a stron gcharacter, it just took her a little while to figure out just how strong she was. Overall, I was very impressed with the book and enjoyed it a lot.