You've learned a little bit about the Harlem Renaissance recently. By now you should have read the works assigned by Zora Neale Hurston and Ralph Ellison. Hurston is well known for a great deal of work, the most recognizable of which is probably Their Eyes Were Watching God. Though, now, she is frequently identified and thought of as a writer, she was, first, an anthropologist. Known for her vivacious and unapologetic personality, Hurston wrote works of fiction which drove forward both the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights movement. She also wrote several essays and non-fiction pieces. One of these was "How It Feels to Be The Colored Me." Ralph Ellison is most well-known for his novel, The Invisible Man (tragically, Ellison's second novel was destroyed in a fire in his home and he never again wrote another book). While The Invisible Man has been interpreted and re-interpreted for years, it began as a metaphorical conversation of visual identity--a man who could not be seen by those around him. The term "invisible man" and Ellison's story have become a part of the american lexicon (vocabulary) and identity over the years--to the point that its origin is often forgotten, but the concept still pervades pop culture even today. Both of these texts, one non-fiction and the other fiction, are important to understanding the evolution of the American identity, the Civil Rights' movement, and the flourishing of the Harlem Renaissance. |
"Slavery is the price I paid for civilization, and the choice was not with me. It is a bully adventure and worth all that I have paid through my ancestors for it. No one on earth ever had a greater chance for glory." -"How It Feels to Be Colored Me," Zora Neale Hurston
“I am an invisible man. No I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allen Poe: Nor am I one of your Hollywood movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, simply because people refuse to see me.” -The Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Use these quotes to focus what you read in your textbook. Using Hurston and Ellison's works, how is the evolution of the American Identity being redefined? What do Hurston and Ellison express must happen in order for the world to continue to progress forward? How do their words differ from or support the words of the other voices in the Modernist period?
“I am an invisible man. No I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allen Poe: Nor am I one of your Hollywood movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, simply because people refuse to see me.” -The Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Use these quotes to focus what you read in your textbook. Using Hurston and Ellison's works, how is the evolution of the American Identity being redefined? What do Hurston and Ellison express must happen in order for the world to continue to progress forward? How do their words differ from or support the words of the other voices in the Modernist period?