The text of Thier Eyes were watching god speaks of racism in American culture.  Instead of comparing it to one work such as a song I would like to Make a comparison to an entire artists work.  Mr. Johnny Cash has had many inferences of racism in some of Americas greatest songs.  He was creating these works in a time when segrigation was acceptable.  This fueld his career for many years.  I do not agree with some of his works but you can not deny that he is one of Americas greatest aritists.  Some people argue that it is just southern country.  Another artist was Leonard Skinner who was full of what he called southern pride but what i call southern racism.  He was less subtle of these feelings as compared to Johnny Cash but this was still presnt in the times.

I thought that The Green Mile by Stephen King, is a great comparison to both Their Eyes Were Watching God and A Good Man is Hard to Find.  The aspect of racism in the South, is present in Their Eyes Were Watching God and in The Green Mile.  One of the main character in The Green Mile, a large black man, is put on death row for killing two little girls without ever recieving a fair trial or anything.  It is just assumed that since he is a black man, he is evil and definitely committed the crime.  At the same time, The Green Mile also deals with morality and grace throughout the story.  God has given this man a great gift to help people and save their lives.  He gives the guard in charge of him grace and forgiveness for having to put him to death for something he did not commit.  He sacrifices himself on death row to appease the parents of the two little girls that were killed.  He understands that they will never believe that he did not kill them, so he allows himself to be put to death so that the parents can have some sort of comfort in knowing that they daughters' killer will have to face justice for what he did.  This type of mercy and grace through violence and death was present throughout all of the shorts stories written by O'Conner.  I never really thought of Stephen King as being any type of religious writer but he incorporates quite a bit of religion into this story.  Some of you might have seen the movie, but I definitely reccommend reading the book because it is much better.

When reading the haunting of hill house i couldnt help remember the part where Eleanor leaves home. this made me think of the song by the Beetles, Shes Leaving Home, because its talking about how shes sneaking out of the house and how shes sure shes going to get caught when the exact same thing happens in the book. She is leaving after every one in her family is telling her that it is a bad idea and she sneaks out and takes the car not caring what the other people really have to say about it.

She's Leaving Home

Wednesday morning at five o'clock as
the day begins
Silently closing her bedroom door
Leaving the note that she hoped would
say more
She goes downstairs to the kitchen
clutching her hankerchief
Quietly turning the backdoor key
Stepping outside she is free.
She (We gave her most of our lives)
is leaving (Sacrificed most of our lives)
home (We gave her everything
money could buy)
She's leaving home after living alone
For so many years. Bye, bye
Father snores as his wife gets into her
dressing gown
Picks up the letter that's lying there
Standing alone at the top of the stairs
She breaks down and cries to her husband
Daddy our baby's gone.
Why would she treat us so thoughtlessly
How could she do this to me.
She (We never thought of ourselves)
is leaving (Never a thought for ourselves)
home (We struggled hard all
our lives to get by)
She's leaving home after living alone
For so many years. Bye, bye
Friday morning at nine o'clock she is far
away
Waiting to keep the appointment she
made
Meeting a man from the motor trade.
She What did we do that was wrong
is having We didn't know it was wrong
fun Fun is the one thing that
money can't buy
Something inside that was always denied
For so many years. Bye, bye
She's leaving home. Bye, bye

There is a definate connection between Their Eyes were Watching God and the movie Anchorman. The connection, beyond the fact that Will Ferrell is absoultely hilarious is the discrimination against women. The men in the movie treat their new female coworker as a complete inferior. They say things such as "its AnchorMAN not AnchorWOMAN" etc. This is similar to the way that Jody treats Janie in the store. He does not believe that she is capable of doing much in the store herself and takes cheap shots at her when she messes up. One particular instance is when she is cutting the plug of tobacco and did not cut it on the exact line that she was supposed to do.

I chose the poem What Am I by Lauren Hymson and compared it to Their Eyes Were Watching God.  The very first line reminds me of the Janie because she was raised by her grandmother and was often confused because the other kids gave her such a hard time about her father.  The part in the poem when it says The nameless The outsider reminds me of when Janie and Joe move to the new town.  No one too the time to learn Janie's name they just knew her as the Mayors wife.  She felt like she didn't fit in with the other women in the town and even if she did Joe wouldn't allow her to talk to them.  The line int he poem that says Our identities waiting to be claimed reminds me of after Joe dies and she takes her hair down out of the bun and almost becomes and new person.  This whole poem just reminds me of the struggles and triumphs in Janie's life.

The poem is at http://www.webcom.com/intvoice/poetry.html and is by Laura Hymson

I thought that Their Eyes Were Watching God could be drawn into a connection with Carry That Weight by the Beatles. Throughout the book the African Americans are subjected to numerous tribulations that collect to hold them down. For example, the blacks had to stand at the back of the courthouse during the trial and Tea Cake had to bury the dead blacks in a pit while the whites were given coffins. Since that time was full of racial segregation and ignorance, the characters is Hurston's book will have to carry the weight of racial injustice for some thoughout their lives. I interpreted the last three lines in regards to the shooting of Tea Cake. He invited Janie to sleep in his bed numerous times thougthout his rabies fit but she refused to because of his condition. Thus he invited her but he never gives her his pillow (sharing a bed) because she does not want to contract the vicious condition. Once Janie knows she has the vaccine she begins to celebrate but soon before she recieves the medicine Tea Cake breaks down and trys to kill her.

Carry That Weight

Boy - you're gonna carry that weight,
Carry that weight a long time.
I never give you my pillow,
I only send you invitations,
And in the middle of the celebrations I break down.

In the first book we read Their Eyes Were Watching God Janie was being broken down the whole book.  Each of her husbands or lovers were beating her down in some way or another.  I chose the song killing Me Softly by Lauryn Hill and the Fugees just for that reason.  When listening to the song it sounds as though the person is being tourn down.  Her husbands critisims and physsical and emotional abuse was beaten down on Janie.  But Janie knew that she would get through it so she never said anything about it and never spoke up for herself. 

"I heard he sang a good song, I heard he had a style,
And so I came to see him and listen for a while.
And there he was this young boy, stranger to my eyes,"

She thought that Joe Starks was a good man at the beginnign of their relationship.  He was good to her and then when she di speak up he embarrassed her and banned her from seeing him and in turn became a stranger in her eyes.

Strumming my pain with his fingers,
Singing my life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song,
Killing me softly with his song,
Telling my whole life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song.
[lauryn]
I heard he sang a good song, I heard he had a style,
And so I came to see him and listen for a while.
And there he was this young boy, stranger to my eyes,
Strumming my pain with his fingers,
Singing my life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song,
Killing me softly with his song,
Telling my whole life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song.
I felt all flushed with fever,
Embarrassed by the crowd,
I felt he found my letters and read each one out loud.
I prayed that he would finish,
But he just kept right on strumming my pain with his fingers,
Singing my life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song,
Killing me softly with his song,
Telling my whole life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song
[clef]
Yo l-boogie, take it to the bridge
[lauryn]
(bust it)
Strumming my pain with his fingers,
Singing my life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song,
Killing me softly with his song,
Telling my whole life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song.
Strumming my pain with his finger, yeah he was . . .

I think that this song is a great representation of Janie's relationships with the men in her life. Each of them had a way of stringing her along and bringing her down.  Even Teacake beat her, just to show that she was his.  Her whole life she jsut let it all happen, she let them all "kill her softly."

Since we are only beginning to read deep into this story, it is hard to find some relation between other texts. However, the most prominent part of the story, thus far, is the fear exuding from Eleanor as she enters the town and arrives at the house. A poem named "No Fear" by David Darbyshire illustrates the type of fear Eleanor was feeling. The relationship between The Haunting of Hill House and the poem "No Fear" relate to the fear of the unknown.  

Fear of You
Fear of Me
Fear of Others
Fear you cannot See
You cannot 'smell' Fear
Or 'taste' Fear
You can't 'hear' Fear
Also not 'touch' Fear
But
Everyone 'Feels' Fear
How is this Possible?
When you cannot:
Touch, Smell, Taste or Hear
Fear
I have a fear of not knowing the Answer

Eleanor did not know why the house was making her want to flee, but the way it stood at the end of the drive with its darkness sent chills through her body and bad thoughts racing through her mind. The book clearly illustrates her feelings and so does this poem, "Everyone 'Feels' Fear." She is also afraid of the caretakers of the house because they actually know what there is to be fearful of and hide their knowings from Eleanor - "Fear of Others."

The poem and the book relate in the sense that they both are unsure of what fear really is. The book foreshadows something bad happening to Eleanor inside of the house, but again, she has no idea what to fear. The author of this poem fears not knowing the answer, just like Eleanor does not know the answer of house.

I have climbed highest mountain
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you

I have run
I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you

But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for

I have kissed honey lips
Felt the healing in her fingertips
It burned like fire
This burning desire

I have spoke with the tongue of angels
I have held the hand of a devil
It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone

But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for

I believe in the kingdom come
Then all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one
Well yes I'm still running

You broke the bonds and you
Loosed the chains
Carried the cross
Of my shame
Of my shame
You know I believed it

But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for...

Ok I chose this song by U2 because i feel that it went right along with Janie"s story.  The song talks about feeling happines and feeling pain but never really finding that place where you belong.  I felt through out the entire story that Janie never really had a secure sense of home.  She had loved in her life but it always went away and left her with a void feeling.  Even at the end of the story i felt like there should have been more, like she found her place in the world.  I never got that feeling, after tea cake died it just felt lonely again.  I wanted more of janies story.  She never found her place, what she was looking for. 

In Their Eyes Were Watching God I noticed that race is one of the biggest issues in the book. How people could care less what happened to the black bodies in the storm, but every white body would have a coffin and a place. It is upseting how ignorant people could be, but the sad thing is that it still happens today. No matter how far we get with technology, we can't seem to get good human nature right. The song "We Shall Be Free" is sung by Garth Brooks and I think that it makes a great point about race, class, religion, poverty, prejudice, environment, and monetary gain. All of these factors are not only prevalent in Their Eyes Were Watching God but in every story we have read so far. Race: "When the last thing we notice is the color of skin, and the first thing we look for is the beauty within." Class and poverty: : "when the last child cries for a crust of bread, when the last man dies for just words that he said, when there's shelter over the poorest head...we shall be free." Environment: "when the skies and oceans are clean again." Religion: "when we're all free to worship from our own kind of pew.".....We Shall Be Free.

"We Shall Be Free"

 This aint comin from no prophet
Just an ordinary man
When I close my eyes I see
The way this world shall be
When we all walk hand in hand

When the last child cries for a crust of bread
When the last man dies for just words that he said
When there's shelter over the poorest head
We shall be free

When the last thing we notice is the color of skin
And the first thing we look for is the beauty within
When the skies and the oceans are clean again
Then we shall be free

We shall be free
We shall be free
Just have a little faith
And hold out
'Cause we shall be free

When we're free to love anyone we choose
When this worlds big enough for all different views
When we're all free to worship from our own kind of pew
Then we shall be free

We shall be free
We shall be free
Step straight
Walk proud
'Cause we shall be free

And when money talks for the very last time
And nobody walks a step behind
When there's only one race and thats mankind
Then we shall be free

We shall be free
We shall be free
Listen what im sayin to you
Cause every night and day i pray it's true,
Together
Forever
We shall be free

We Shall be free
We shall be free
Stand straight,
Hold out
We shall be free

We shall be free
We shall be free

I didnt think that this would be so damn hard, but it was for me.  I looked through song lyrics and such and finally picked a dark one.  Black Sabbath, the Headless Cross, dunno what that means but it is the title!

 Silver mountains won't save you from hell
The prince of darkness inside you will dwell
Oh your weakness your past
The lawmaker comes

I thought this went with the Mysfit, he seems to be making a change like something the old woman is saying is sinking in and then bam.  Turns out no.  I think that this means in accordance with him that he saw that what she was saying didnt pertain to him, that he was one who couldnt be saved, nothing really mattered.  I definitely think that there was a lil bit of darkness in this man , ok what the hell there was a lot within this guy.  He talks about himself, his beliefs, and his past, blaming others for his problems and misfortunes.  But it turned out right then the person most deserving for the bullet, doesnt get it, he turns out to be the lawmaker for this family.  He decided their fates and took away their lives.  But his fate will soon be decided.

When thinking about this assignment, I was trying and trying to come up with some text that had anything to do with what we have read.  Then, I got to thinking about the book I am reading for my English 360 class, Frances Burney's "Evelina."  I started noticing a lot of similarities between it and "Their Eyes Were Watching God." The novel Evelina connects quite extensively with Their Eyes Were Watching God as each novel follows a girl through several hardships, changes, and follies as she finds her way to her true identity.  All of you should be familiar with Their Eyes Were Watching God. We follow the life of Janie as she is faced with changes and toils and eventually finds her voice and her identity at the end of the journey.  There are some connections between that and Evelina.  Evelina is a series of letters telling the story of a young girl who takes a trip to London and is thrust into high society.  Being sheltered and from the country, she faces many changes and adjustments and eventually finds her true identity and a place where she fits in.  Although the settings are different for each, we have the inner thoughts of young women revealed in each and are shown how each of those inner struggles leads to an identity and ultimately, a voice in the world. I suggest reading Evelina. The text is a little hard to follow but it is still humorous and a great read! Go to http://www.amazon.com/Evelina-Oxford-World-s-Classics/dp/0192840312/sr=8-1/qid=1158325343/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-7462151-0406412?ie=UTF8&s=books if you want to find out more! (that felt a little like reading rainbow...)

The racist themes in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God reminded me a lot of a novel I had to read in middle school called Roll of Thunder, Here Me Cry by Mildred D. Taylor.  Even though I'm pretty sure that Taylor's novel is considered a novel for children and therefore some of the themes aren't as adult as Hurston's novel, Roll of Thunder, Here My Cry presents racist experiences through the eyes of a naive, little black girl growing up and going to a segregated school in the South.  In this regard I actually think, compared to Their Eyes Were Watching God, that Roll of Thunder, Here My Cry illustrates even more of the hardships of being a black female in the South because where Hurston's novel explores a woman's life and her experiences with love, Roll of Thunder doesn't have any of that at all.  That being said Janie's school life, with her grandmother reflecting on her past to her and Janie not really knowing what the difference is between white and black, reminded me a great deal of the girl's experiences in school, where she notices such things as her books being in a crappier condition than the white children's and how they seem to get more benefits in other things.  It has been awhile since I've read the book so I may be mixing this up with another book I read.  Anyway, here's the link:

http://www.amazon.com/Roll-Thunder-Hear-My-Cry/dp/014034893X/sr=1-1/qid=1158293838/ref=sr_1_1/002-0646874-4327216?ie=UTF8&s=books

In the short story Good Country People, Mrs. Hopewell and her daugher Faith/Hulga have both a sense of innocents while their hired help Mrs. Freeman, seemed to have a better grasp on human deceit. The song Walk Tall, by John Mellencamp seems to catch the idea of the mother and daughter ignorance and Mrs. Freemans attitude toward them. In his lyrics, Mrs. Freeman is the one who looks away from Mrs. Hopewell and Hulga when they will not listen to her opinion in Manely Pointer. Mrs. Hopewell and Faith/Hulga are the simple minded and uninformed which can make them "easily led astray."

The Simple minded  

And the uninformed  

Can be easily led astray  

And those that cannot connect the dots  

Hey look the other way  

People belive what they want to believe  

When it makes no sense at all  ~John Mellencamp "Walk Tall"

Both Zora Neal Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist are about the journey of life. This journey is about realizing dreams and understanding self. It is not the beginning or the end that matters, but the actions and steps it takes to reach a deeper realization. Some quotations from both books that support this are as follows:

Their Eyes Were Watching God

“Ships at a distance have very man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide…” (1)

“Yes indeed. You know if you pass some people and don’t speak tuh suit ‘em dey got to go way back in yp’ life and see whut you ever done. They know mo’ ‘bout yuh that you do yo’ self. An envious heart makes a treacherous ear. They done ‘heard’ ‘bout you just what they hope done happened.”

“Janie full of that oldest human longing – self revelation.” (7)

“’Dat’s you, Alphabet, don’t you know yo’ ownself?’” (9)

“She thought back and forth about what had happened in the making of a voice out of a man. Then thought about herself. Years ago, she had told her girl self to wait for her in the looking glass.” (87)

“She had found a jewel down inside herself and she had wanted to walk where people could see her and gleam it around.” (90)

 The Alchemist

“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”

“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting, he thought.”

“If someone isn’t what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none of his or her own.”

“’I’m like everyone else – I see the world in terms of what I would like to see happen, not what actually does.’”

“Today, I understand something I didn’t see before: every blessing ignored becomes a curse.”

 “But he was able to understand one thing: making a decision was only the beginning of things. When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.” 

I’ll leave it at that, even though I have many more. Another connection that could possibly be made is that both books touch on the importance of perceptions on one’s own self image.

When I read Flannery O'Connor's short story The River, I was reminded of a Point of Grace song entitled Gather at the River.  Basically the song is about finding forgiveness in the river of God's grace, which I felt applied to this story very well because the little boy wants to find the Kingdom of God, which in turn causes him to be drawn back to the river.  Even though the little boy does not completely understand what it meant to be baptized at the river that day, he still realizes that there is something special about the river (representing God) and wants to know more.  I felt that this song was a good represenation of the story.

These are the lyrics of the chorus of the song, the part I felt applied the most:

"Shall we gather at the river of forgiveness
Come together at the waters of love
Flowing like a fountain from the the mercy giver
Shall we gather at the river
We have all made enemies of
The ons we're call by Christ to love
But there's redemption at the riverside
The water's deep, the water's wide
It can wash away our bitterness
The current is strong
I think we've been out in the desert too long"

At the very moment Janie, in Their Eyes are Watching God, steps into womanhood, her future is out of her control. As I listened to the song Out of My Hands by Dave Matthews Band (Stand Up, 2005), three particular lines stand out to me: its out of my hands for now, I can't just walk away, be nice to walk away. I can just picture Janie thinking this as she is married off to Logan Killicks, her first husband. She cannot walk away from something she is forced into. Her life with Joe is out of her control as well. It is not until he dies that she is given the chance to take her future into her own hands by finding and marrying a man she really loves.

Oppression wears on and also strengthens everything it affects. Two different forms of struggles are presented within Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun and Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. In A Raisin in the Sun, the form of oppression illustrated is the battle Walter Lee Younger's family faces to gain equality with whites in terms of housing and working. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, the struggle is a hurricane, in which Tea Cake and Janie are fighting for their lives by trying to keep from drowning. Oppression affects its victims differently by the form it decides to take but makes them stronger because of the struggles they endure.

Website for A Raisin in the Sun:

http://www.amazon.com/Raisin-Sun-Vintage-Lorraine-Hansberry/dp/0679755330/sr=8-1/qid=1158271019/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-9552211-6944940?ie=UTF8&s=books

In Their Eyes Were Watching God Janie's life takes many turns and has many twists but she remains strong. Her life is hard but she learns somewhat quickly from all of her endeavors. I think that her life and the way she learns from mistakes and keeps on going even when it gets tough relates to a song by Alkaline Trio called Burn. The chorus of the song directly relates to Janie's struggle, "Everyone learns faster on fire, things took a turn, you live and you burn." It relates because Janie hits hard times often in the book and took those mistakes or problems and turned them into happy times and love. When things started going downhill with her first husband she decided to leave with Joe. Then she moved on from him, learning much from him and getting "burned" and then she moved on to Tea Cake. Which then led her to burn again by losing her husband and then being blamed for his death. She fought through her mistakes when they came along, she ended strong just like the song!