Style Analysis Homework

Passage #1

    Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they

come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, nev-

er out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in

resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of

men.

    Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember,

and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the

truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.

    So the beginning of this was a woman and she had come back from

burying the dead. Not the dead of sick and ailing with friends at the

pillow and the feet. She had come back from the sodden and the

bloated; the sudden dead, their eyes flung wide open in judgment.

    The people all saw her come because it was sundown. The sun was

gone, but he had left his footprints in the sky. It was the time for sit-

ting on porches beside the road. It was the time to hear things and

talk.

Passage #2

    nothing she could do to discourage her completely. She felt honored

by Janie’s acquaintance and she quickly forgave and forgot snubs in

order to keep it. Anyone who looked more white folkish than herself

was better than she was in her criteria, therefore it was right that they

should be cruel to her at times, just as she was cruel to those more

negroid than herself in direct ratio to their negroness. Like the

pecking-order in a chicken yard. Insensate cruelty to those you can

whip, and groveling submission to those you can’t. Once having set up

her idols and built altars to them it was inevitable that she would wor-

ship there. It was inevitable that she should accept any inconsistency

and cruelty from her deity as all good worshippers do from theirs. All

gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering

without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through in-

discriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emo-

tion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods

are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.

   

Passage #3

    The time was past for asking the white folks what to look for

through that door. Six eyes were questioning God.

    Through the screaming wind they heard things crashing and things

hurtling and dashing with unbelievable velocity. A baby rabbit, terror

ridden, squirmed through a hole in the floor and squatted off there in

the shadows against the wall, seeming to know that nobody wanted its

flesh at such a time. And the lake got madder and madder with only its

dikes between them and him.

    In a little wind-lull, Tea Cake touched Janie and said, “Ah reckon

you wish now you had of stayed in yo’ big house ’way from such as dis,

don’t yuh?”

    “Naw.”

    “Naw?”

    “Yeah, naw. People don’t die till dey time come nohow, don’t keer

where you at. Ah’m wid mah husband in uh storm, dat’s all.”

Passage #4

    The pistol and the rifle rang out almost together. The pistol just

enough after the rifle to seem its echo. Tea Cake crumpled as his bullet

buried itself in the joist over Janie’s head. Janie saw the look on his

face and leaped forward as he crashed forward in her arms. She was

trying to hover him as he closed his teeth in the flesh of her forearm.

They came down heavily like that. Janie struggled to a sitting position

and pried the dead Tea Cake’s teeth from her arm.

    It was the meanest moment of eternity. A minute before she was

just a scared human being fighting for its life. Now she was her sacrifi-

cing self with Tea Cake’s head in her lap. She had wanted him to live

so much and he was dead. No hour is ever eternity, but it has its right

to weep. Janie held his head tightly to her breast and wept and

thanked him wordlessly for giving her the chance for loving service.

She had to hug him tight for soon he would be gone, and she had to

tell him for the last time. Then the grief of outer darkness descended.

Watson's Theory and Their Eyes Were Watching God

  Wallace’s theory of moving away from ‘default mode’ can only be done once a person acknowledges and processes experiences shared by or read about other people’s lives. This ties to Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God because this story follows the experiences of a young girl who, in the pursuit of finding love, finds many hardships in her path that she learns to move on from and learn from. Hurston describes how a person may feel trapped in their own body by social norms and ideals, which is shown through Janie’s bullying and Nanny’s talk to her about how black women are never safe. From this, the audience is able to understand the hardships of a black woman in that era when blacks had just gotten out of slavery. Even though people in this era do not understand those struggles, Hurston provides us the information to begin to see the world in a new light. For example, in many abusive relationships, the woman is usually seen as weak and too forgiving of her lover. Although, Hurston, through Janie and Jody’s relationship, gives us another perspective of how women in these abusive relationships are not actually weak, but may have grown up with ideas and people who have warned them against doing things the ‘wrong’ way, like Nanny and Killicks did to Janie, or even the women do not want to ‘ruin’ their relationship so sacrifice their freedom to try to stay happy with the one they had fallen in love with. We see Janie’s journey of struggle in this particular relationship as she slowly becomes silent and obedient to her husband, leaving behind her old, bright self. Then, at his death, we see how free she feels, as though it was a blessing her husband died. This experience alone gives the audience the idea of how suffocating abusive relationships are and how hopeless they seem to be. It is from this that we see Wallace’s theory of drawing away from our ‘default mode’ to instead begin to understand others, even if they seem to not understand you.

Summer Blog Post #2

  In my summer holiday, I also visited New York City. The stark difference between the towns and cities of Alaska and downtown New York was the abundance of cultures found in the city. Even in the crowded streets surrounding Times Square, there were always restaurants, shops, advertisements, even artworks that had been inspired or taken from other countries or were inspired by the history of New York City.

  One such artwork was in Midtown, painted by Eduardo Kobra, a Brazilian artist. At first people were skeptical as this artwork did not seem like it was painted, but rather, an image printed onto the wall. But, upon closer inspection, the outline of the bricks could be seen with the rough and uneven surface of the building itself, adding to the idea that this painting, this part of New York’s history, truly was an integrated and real part of the city’s history, just as that building was a part of Midtown. It had the bright red and blue of the US flag with the firefighter, wearing a uniform in a kaleidoscope of colors, staring down on the very stars they’re kneeling on. It reminded me of how it was the duty of the fire department and law enforcement and healthcare system to protect the people of the US from harm and save them from disaster. So seeing that firefighter kneel on the stars, or rather, kneeling to the stars, or states, that they are sworn to protect was, to me, the very image that expresses how far these people would go to save others; even giving up their own lives, as had happened years ago.

Image Source: https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/a-giant-mural-of-a-firefighter-was-unveiled-in-midtown-on-9-11

  To put perspective into this piece of artwork, this firefighter represents the many firefighters who lost their lives trying to save the victims of 9 / 11. The hatchet from the painting is a tool used by the fire department to try to break away debris to save victims trapped under the rubble of the buildings. Almost 3,000 people had lost their lives with 343 of them being the very same firefighters that died that day trying to save them. Now, 200 more have died throughout the years after the attack due to the illness or illnesses they received while trying to save victims of the attack.

  It is from this that I was able to see how New York values its history, even if the events are dark and sorrowful. New York City brings them to life with the many cultures the city inhabits, allowing the city to grow and to celebrate its uniqueness. Even at the memorial for the Twin Towers, I saw people of every culture, every race and every religion giving their respects and appreciating the history of the city, showing how rich the history and how diverse the communities of New York City are.

Summer Blog Post #1

  When in Alaska, the first thing many people would see are the mountains reaching towards the sky or the endless forests. For me, I saw the deep culture of those inhabiting the towns, mainly the language. Throughout my trip, in every group I was in, our tour guides would be young people who grew up with their native tongues while learning English at their local schools. Even when speaking, they constantly switched out common phrases like “Yes” and “No” to their native alternatives, explaining to us that such a switch in their tongues was normal for the inhabitants. They had their own tribes within the towns, such as the Crow tribe or the Bear tribe, that, although spoke slight variations of the local languages, had lived side by side for generations, praising the younger generations for learning and using their languages. I saw this throughout my experiences in Alaska where even young school children could be heard switching from English to their native tongues.

  One of my first group guides had driven our bus to our canoeing site. Throughout his explanation of the local history, he began explaining the five types of salmon caught in their waters. There was the Dog salmon, the King salmon, the Silver salmon, the Red salmon and the Pink salmon. Although, that’s not what he called them. He instead called them, in order, the Chum (Dog) salmon, the Chinook (King) salmon, the Coho (Silver) salmon, the Sockeye (Red) salmon and the Humpback (Pink) salmon. ‘Chum’, ‘Chinook’ and ‘Coho’ meant ‘Dog’, ‘King’ and ‘Silver’, respectively, while the Sockeye and Humpback salmon got their names from their appearances. The Humpback especially from the salmon’s back shape during the mating season, making local fisherman call it the ‘Humpback’ salmon instead of the ‘Pink’ salmon. Even in times of the extinction of local languages, it is communities in cities like Alaska’s salmon capital, Ketchikan, that teach their young generations to both carry on their native languages and learn the international language of English.