Summary+Pages+Jessica

1) summary of main arguments 2) something surprising or interesting learned 3) agree/disagree with the ideas and then apply this to a scene or example from the book (one not mentioned by the critic). Please try to disagree at least once with a critic. At the top, include how many pages, the bibliography information, which summary.

**1st Article: "Orality & Textuality" by Elizabeth Messe**
__Works Cited__ Bloom, Harold, ed. //Zora Neale Hurston''s Their Eyes Were Watching God//. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. //Questia//. Web. 27 Jan. 2010.
 * Pages 59-71= 12 pages in total**

The above citation is actually for the compilation of criticisms from which this criticism was taken from. Below is the bibliography for the criticism "Orality & Textuality" by Elizabeth Messe:

Messe, Elizabeth. __Orality & Textuality__. New York, 1987. Bloom, Harold. Chelsea House. New York, NY, 2010.

It is interesting how the two key words in the title of Elizabeth Messe's criticism, "Orality & Textuality", are considered misspellings in Microsoft Word. Perhaps these terms describing literary usage are relatively unused. Or perhaps these abstract qualities are relatively unexplored. While constructing a guided criticism of Zora Neale Hurston's work Their Eyes Were Watching God analyzing the translation from "orality" to "textuality", Messe argues that the notable folklore establishes interpersonal dominance––a phallocentric process.
 * Summary:**

Messe first presents the idea of orality, the quality describing the spoken form of language. The protagonist Janie, in //Their Eyes Were Watching God//, is supposed to entertain her dear friend Phoebe with her convoluted life story. However, the narrator abruptly steals the show and does the talking–or rather, speaking. Though we expect a first-person narrative from Janie, we are surprised with a third-person frame narrative. This goes to show the lack of personal voice Janie has at the beginning of her life of subservience. The absent orality in Jane weakens her presence in the novel, demonstrating the muted voice of the oppressed. By choosing to have the narrator retell the story rather than have Janie do the storytelling, Hurston is deliberately removing Janie’s power.

But the characters Janie so submissively observes also are affected by orality. The flat characters in Hurston’s work hang around Janie’s husband’s store. They huddle around board games and gossip about women and going-ons. This, Messe argues, renders orality a phallocentric process. The men sitting around the store challenge each other with entertaining stories. If the man is able to tell a decent story, takes on the role of a “big-picture talker” or a “mule talker”, he gains respect from his fellow men. Janie transfers from a stage of silence to that of speech, garnering respect from the men that hung around the store. She establishes her dominance over her husband by seizing the power of speech and speaking back to him.

To conclude, Messe discusses the transformation from orality to textuality. Messe claims that by retelling the story, Hurston is establishing textuality, the quality of written language. And by establishing textuality she is mapping the mind of a woman who personally resisted male dominance. Messe revealed something I had completely overlooked while reading //Their Eyes Were Watching God//. She uncovers an interesting aspect, the phallocentric process. It sparked a lot of questions: is Janie ascending through speech to pull herself apart from black womanhood? Is she trying to attain the status of a white male? I agree with Messe in that she is trying to gain dominance through speaking, but the idea in itself does not necessarily associate her with man. Who is to say that storytelling is exclusive to man, when woman storytellers have long been ingrained in Afro-American culture? It feels like a rushed conclusion. Therefore, I agree in part that Janie is trying to achieve greater dominance, but I do not feel she is trying to ascend to masculinity. Rather, she is finding that strength in her own womanhood. ***Nice summary. When you first gave the thesis, I thought -- this makes no sense. However, you were able to cogently explain what could have been a complicated argument. I can tell from your summary that your reviewer did EXACTLY what we would hope from a analysis. That is taking each part and carefully building from what at first seems ridiculous to then become more convincing. Additionally, nice disagreement. The initial premise DOES seem a little hasty. 10/10** *

2nd Article: "Ideology and Narrative Form" by Houston A. Baker Jr.

 * Pages 35-39=4 pages in total**

__Works Cited__ Bloom, Harold, ed. //Zora Neale Hurston''s Their Eyes Were Watching God//. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. //Questia//. Web. 27 Jan. 2010.

The above citation is actually for the compilation of criticisms from which this criticism was taken from. Below is the bibliography for the criticism "Ideology and Narrative Form" by Houston A. Baker Jr.

Baker, Houston. __Ideology and Narrative Form__. New York, 1987. Bloom, Harold. Chelsea House. New York, NY, 2010.

Baker is quick to introduce his thesis, explaining the importance of archaeology and discovering the “subtextual bonding" between Zora Neale Hurston's //Their Eyes Were Watching God// and its narrative antecedents. It was only until after I finished reading this article that I noticed Baker's wordplay with the word “bonding”; It does not just mean the establishment of relationship between the novel and history, but also resonates the //state// of bondage–slavery. In this analysis, Baker reasons that slavery is the ideology that bleeds through in this novel, manifesting itself through narrative form.
 * Summary:**

The first example the author draws up to explain the construction of the narrative form is the protagonist's, Janie's, relationship with her grandmother. Her grandmother Nanny, having failed with her own daughter, tries to restore Janie's market value by keeping Janie abstinent until marriage. She then tries to marry her off to a man named Logan Killicks, exercising what could be classified as concubinage. In essence, though she is a free woman, Janie is just as much a slave as her grandmother was by being subdued by allowing herself to be married off. However, it is through this initial experience that Janie understands the workings of slavery and its property designation and commercial aspects. Baker then reveals how the pear tree self-comparison Janie makes also marks her relationship to her antecedents. Janie refers to herself as a pear tree that is constantly being fertilized by countless bees. This refers to the relatively high number of spouses (three to be exact) she has during the course of this story. However, the symbolic meaning of bees also includes industriousness. Busy-bees such as Joe Starks attract her in a not-so-romantic context. As the slavery experience resonates within her, she realizes that by marrying Starks, she can obtain property and eventually, freedom. Janie slowly becomes a part of this mercantile process as she sells Starks' store to finance her relationship with teacake. One can see how her birth into the capitalistic workings of slavery ingrained in her a thirst to attain the entrepreneurship of Anglo-America.

So by analyzing //Their Eyes Were Watching God// from an ideological standpoint, one can see that Hurston is depicting the idea of commercial deportation and the historical ties to property relationships. In spite of her experience as property, Janie strives to own property, to instead adapt to these commercial outlines and achieve economic progress. I felt that Baker made a refreshing connection when he pointed out the symbolic meaning of the bees that fertilized Janie. Their diligent nature and their market value in terms of slavery forms a deep contradiction with Janie's experiences in her youth. In many ways, it was a backlash against her personal past and the Afro-American past. It would have been very difficult for me to have established that connection through that metaphor (I had only perceived it as a symbol of her feigned promiscuity). I support Baker's thesis that many of Janie's actions are influenced by the ideology of slavery. With Hurston's references to "mules", one can see that there is a clear connection to Janie's desire to develop from being property to owning property. Though not necessarily a disagreement, I wish Baker could have discussed this ideology's effect on the narrative form in more detail. Through the title, he obviously felt there was an impact on the narrative form. But aside from discussing Janie's specific actions, there was little mention of this second half of his thesis.


 * It is a perfectly legitimate form of scholarship to take someone's idea and stretch it further. If you wanted to apply his idea to the narrative form in both books and maybe take it further, it would work. 10/10 -- Again, the first paragraph was a head spinner and then you make it clear.**

3rd Article: "A Black and Idiomatic Free Indirect Discourse" by Barbara Johnson

 * Pages 73-85=12 pages in total**

__Works Cited__ Bloom, Harold, ed. //Zora Neale Hurston''s Their Eyes Were Watching God//. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. //Questia//. Web. 27 Jan. 2010.

The above citation is actually for the compilation of criticisms from which this criticism was taken from. Below is the bibliography for the criticism "A Black and Idiomatic Free Indirect Discourse" by Barbara Johnson

Johnson, Barbara. __A Black and Idiomatic Free Indirect Discourse__. New York, 1987. Bloom, Harold. Chelsea House. New York, NY, 2010.

Barbara Johnson claims through her criticism that Hurston’s use of free indirect discourse--the mingling between third and first points of narration--is central to Hurston’s assessment of male writing. A similar argument is made in Messe's criticism "Orality & Textuality"--that the rather blurry point of view represents the strength and dignity the protagonist acquires through her personal development in Hurston's //Their Eyes Were Watching God//. However, Johnson chooses to focus on the "speakerly aspect" and the duality behind Janie's voice.
 * Summary:**

So what exactly is this male writing that Hurston critiques? According to Johnson, it's an egotistic voice that sounds like the boom of thunder. In //Their Eyes Were Watching God//, it's the voice of God. Joe Starks, Janie's second husband, takes on the role of a God-figure in the town he finances and develops. When the town’s renovations are revealed, he symbolically lights the streets with proper lamps, bringing light to the world. Quite reasonably, Johnson argues that Joe Starks is symbolically playing God in this little black town. This free indirect discourse is first attributed to Starks' writing. It is clear that he does the talking. The narrator does not say "he said"...Starks //says// on his own. Yet all this is brought down with Janie's backlash when she claims Starks is not God, but an impotent man. In effect, she rewrites the words of God, bringing His reign of free indirect discourse to an end.

This free indirect discourse, first evident in Starks' words, later finds its way into Janie's speech. Rather than solely sticking to the third point of view, we can notice hints of the first narrative, mixed in her monologue. She has chosen to take on a dual voice that conveys both the objective, submissive third and the confident first. This duality in narration creates a battle between showing and telling, between mimesis and diegesis. It becomes even more difficult for the reader to classify the point of view as the subject and object begin to dissolve into each other. This free indirect discourse attempts to convey consciousness without the intrusion of narrator. And by employing this bivocalism, Hurston naturalizes the “speakerly aspect” of the the narrator’s commentary. To support this argument, Johnson provides textual examples of the three modes of narration that Hurston uses: direct discourse, indirect discourse, and free indirect discourse. These examples support that through free indirect discourse, Hurston fuses the voice of the narrator and the speaking character.

Therefore, the transformation lies in reporting what one thinks to simply thinking it on paper. This free indirect discourse that Janie adopts voices not just her own thoughts but the black community's thoughts. Ultimately, we are unable to distinguish between standard English and black vernacular, between the female and male voice, between telling and showing, and textuality and orality. My favorite phrase in this criticism is "words walking without masters". It captured a detail that I felt was most interesting: free indirect discourse creates freedom. Rather than simply reporting Janie's feelings saying, "She believed...", Hurston would rather have used "Ah believe...". I agree with Johnson in that this whole idea of achieving freedom through free indirect discourse is ironic as textuality inevitably reports actions. However, the degree of freedom achieved definitely changes as one moves from third point of view to first. I did not agree with Johnson's claim that Janie's vernacular discourse also voiced the black community's thoughts. There were many times when Janie was independent and going against even her community's ideals. People looked at her as if she were an outcast so in what way could her voice be in sync with the community members'? It makes more sense that her free indirect discourse establishes her own freedom, since //she// is doing the talking.


 * 10/10**