Blog #20: Final Socratic Discussion

Part 1:
Janie idealizes love
Marriages destroys dreams
Love is found

Part 2:
     Representation of culture in Mary Oliver’s The Black Walnut Tree and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God are completely reversed. In The Black Walnut Tree, the character’s debate selling their tree to pay the hovering mortgage. The tree represents their roots—not only the literal roots of the tree, but also their heritage. “What my mother and I both know is that we'd crawl with shame in the emptiness we'd made in our own and our fathers' backyard” (26-29). Although it is not easy for the family to carry the memory of their heritage, it is something that they value. In contrast, Janie’s Nanie tells her in Their Eyes Were Watching God that “colored folks [are] branches without roots” (Hurston 15). Nanie means that they have no culture—they only roots that most African Americans could trace themselves back to was slavery, and that was not a history that they created for themselves. Although Oliver and Hurston thematic display culture and heritage differently, its presence, or lack thereof, shapes the works.

Part 3:
     The main characters of both William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God both survive their trials with the help of a faithful friend. For Hamlet, this friend is Horatio, who stays by his side through Hamlet’s journey to revenge, proving that he is the only person that Hamlet can trust. For Janie, this friend is Phoebe, who gives her advice and is the first welcoming person when Janie returns to Eatonville. Similar to the fidelity displayed by Horatio and Phoebe, both characters act as orators for their friends. Hamlet tells Horatio before death, “If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart/ Absent thee from felicity a while, And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain/ To tell my story” (5.2.344-347). In comparison, Janie tells Phoebe to tell her story to the gossips in town. “ ‘You can tell ‘em what Ah say if you wants to. Dat’s just de same as me ‘cause mah tongue is in mah friend’s mouf’ ”(Hurston 6).

Blog #19: Their Eyes Were Watching God Socratic Discussion #1 "Say, Mean, Story" Chart

Blog #18: Hamlet Literary Analysis