Analysis Of The Gilded Six-Bits By Hurston

It is strange that two of the most prominent artists of the Harlem Renaissance could ever disagree as much as or be as different as Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright. Despite the fact that they are the same color and lived during the same time period, they do not have much else in common. On the one hand is Hurston, a female writer who indulges in black art and culture and creates subtle messages throughout her most famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. On the other hand is Wright, who is a male writer who demonstrates that whites do not like black people, nor will they ever except for when they are in the condition “…America likes to see the Negro live: between laughter and tears.” Hurston was also a less political writer than

The Harlem Renaissance marked the coming out of many brilliant black authors and thinkers. Names like Jessie Redmon Fauset, Alain Locke, Ralph Waldo Ellison, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston marked the scene. Hurton portrays many messages in her stories without having to explicitly spell it out. This among other reasons make Hurston's writing so rich. Two of her almost fable-like stories, "Sweat" and "The Gilded Six-Bits", each portray powerful messages individually. In "Sweat," you get a message of "whatever goes over the Devil's back, is got to come under his belly." You will reap what you sow among other messages. In "The Gilded Six-Bits," you learn that time will heal, money is the root of all evil, and other morals. These

She uses idealistic examples and real world situations to get the best realistic interpretation on the matter of the harlem renaissance. This novel also is a great way to learn and understand the importance of women's roles and rights during the harlem renaissance era for the black/african american women. All in all, Hurston’s depiction of the harlem renaissance reflects and departs the major topics and does so

Purpose- Hurston’s purpose is to demonstrate that she is proud of her color. She does not need the bragging rights of having Native American ancestry, nor does she ‘belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it.’

I. (Attention Getter) Quote by Zora Neale Hurston about Harlem Renaissance “It would be against all nature for all the Negroes to be either at the bottom, top, or in between. We will go where the internal drive carries us like everybody else. It is up to the individual.”

Zora Neale Hurston's aim in The Gilded Six-Bits is to counter the lingering; glad; darky generalization by which African Americans was respected in her time. In particular, she refutes the plainly condescending attitude of the white store clerk toward the end of the story who needs to be similar to the African Americans, obviously effortless and continually laughing. Such a recognition is rendered silly and crazy by Hurston's story of the inside turmoil brought on by a demonstration of conjugal disloyalty and the unprecedented efforts of Joe and Missie May to revive their love and recovery their marriage.

In the opening sentence of the story Hurston’s writes, “It was eleven o’clock of a Spring night in Florida. It was Sunday” (Hurston, 73). The beginning signifies correct English grammar and proper sentence structure, but in seamless Zora Neale Hurston’s fashion, the dialogue from the protagonist Delia Jones reads in broken incorrect syntax, “Sykes, you quit grindin’ dirt into these clothes! How can Ah git through by Sat’day if Ah don’t start on Sunday” (74)? In her short stories Hurston’s diction is elevated with the usage of morphology with the constant exchange of word formation with infixes, affixes and the combining of word choices. Hurston’s choice of diction offered a rhymical affect that adds a melodious tone to her writing shaped by the Harlem Renaissance period. As noted in the, The Florida Historical Quarterly “Hurston blended narrator and protagonist through language” (Haskin, 207) Her writing style aid in the management of mood, tone, character depiction, movement, and atmosphere in storytelling procedures. In the commencement of her stories, the storyteller, is communicating in standard English, the third-party narrative speaks as a representative for the character waiting to find his or her voice. As the character(s) discoveries their voice, they sway the narrator, and in the conclusion the narrator and central character are speaking for each other, using equally poetic, participating language (207).

Instead of valuing the message one is sharing, society becomes hung up on the formality of the speaker. Hurston’s incorporation of this rough language highlights the hardships members of her community faced to move up in the ranks. They are judged immediately for their voice rather than the content of their ideas. Hurston plays off this stereotype in “Spunk” by recounting the whole story through the idiom of the rural South. Subconsciously, she is spreading awareness of the low economic and social status of her hometown and culture, and then busting the stereotype through the voice of the narrator. The voices of the townspeople mirror Hurston’s origins, and the voice of the narrator illustrates how far she had come in her education and success. Society should not stereotype minority groups because of their lack of resources that hold them back from what they are truly capable of. Unfortunately, critics such as Langston Hughes did not understand Hurston’s intentions. He “accused her of using the dialectic speech and the elements of folklore to degenerate her own people and to please whites, who expected unsophisticated language and behavior from African Americans,” (“Spunk” 296). Hurston along with the many other Harlem Renaissance characters were evidence themselves that the African American culture has unique elements that make it worth celebrating rather than a burden dragging the United States down.

Hurston uses the sun metaphor to represent Janie’s troublesome journey to find herself. The symbol of the sun is used to show that time is passing and that Janie is moving on from one thing to another. Just before Janie leaves Logan and her first marriage, Janie looks over at Logan and notices that “the sun from ambush was threatening the world with red daggers (31).” The diction that Hurston uses implies a negative tone. Using words like “ambush”, “threatening”, and “daggers” shows that this is a serious point in the story. Janie decides at this moment to move on from her first marriage and in doing so setting off to try and make a better life for herself. Unfortunately Janie quickly jumps into a new relationship with Jody so she never has

The author’s diction heightens the tones that the passage portrays. Hurston plays “boisterous games” with the “village children.” Hurston was joyful because she got to play games with her childhood friends. The reader feels a sense of jubilation for Hurston’s lively youth. Hurston wants to be “meek and mild” like her sister, because she fears to become a “mealy mouthed rag doll.” Hurston has to restrain from acting like

The Gilded Six-Bits by Zora Neale Hurston displays impactful symbolism in order to successfully fulfill a meaningful story. Hurston’s particular use of imagery conveys a message of purity that provides a sharp contrast to the unfolding events of the story. Hurston emphasizes an image of purity through the use of symbolism, descriptive word choice, and contrasting events.

Writing my paper on Alain Locke was easier for me because although it was not my discussion board post, it was the post I felt more confident in writing about because of the helped I recently gained from Professor Carlacio about my writing. Struggling in this paper and my other discussion opened my eyes as did Alain Locke’s writing did to those who read it. I’ve come to realize that I needed to make a better effort to understand the context. This critical paper helped analyze more of what went on during the Harlem Renaissance and the mind of Alain Locke.

The short story “The Gilded Six-Bits” by Zora Neale Hurston was published in Story magazine in 1933. The plot of this story takes place in Eatonville, Florida, where Missie May and her beloved quite recently wedded [?its1 year] husband called Joe banter through a play fight every Saturday. They truly cherish the love they have for one another and are happily married although they do not have riches. Joe and Missie go to the newly opened ice cream parlor owned by Mister Otis D. Slemmons, a very wealthy man admired especially for his gold. When Joe finds his wife in bed with Slemmons the relationship turns reserved and cool(distant and cold?) for a long time but, regardless, none [of them] leave[s] the other. Some time later Missie May realizes

Zora Neale Hurston was born in Notasulga, Alabama but eventually moved to Eatonville, Florida. Eatonville is a quaint town, which is near Orlando, Florida where African Americans lived. In 1995, Hurston's "The Gilded Six-Bits" was published and that is when Missie May Banks and Joe Banks were introduced to the world. Throughout Hurston's "The Gilded Six-Bits", readers may notice that there is not just one theme included in the short story but quite a few. For example, a few of the themes that can be recognized from the short story would be marriage, betrayal, and "all that glitters is not gold".

In “The Gilded Six Bits,” Zora Neale Hurston uses several different techniques to characterize Joe and Missie May, the main couple throughout the short story. Hurston utilizes her own background to describe Joe and Missie May and their marriage. She additionally demonstrates their character improvement through her writing styles and techniques, which indicate responses and reactions between Joe and Missie May to develop their relationship. Hurston supports her character development through her written work style, her characters dialect, and encounters experiences from her own life to depict a feeling of reality to her characters identities.