Spiritual Emancipation In Countee Cullen's Incident And Tableeau

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

Zora Neal Hurston was criticized by other African American writers for her use of dialect and folk speech. Richard Wright was one of her harshest critics and likened Hurston’s technique “to that of a minstrel show designed to appease a white audience” (www.pbs.org).Given the time frame, the Harlem Renaissance, it is understandable that Zora Neale Hurston may be criticized. The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement which redefined how America, and the world, viewed African Americans, so her folk speech could be seen as perpetuating main stream society’s view of African Americans as ignorant and incapable of speaking in complete sentences. However, others, such as philosopher and critic Alain Locke, praised her. He considered Hurston’s “gift for poetic phrase and rare dialect, a welcome replacement for so much faulty local color fiction about Negroes” (www.pbs.org).

Johnson depicts the Negro in Harlem as a peculiar people. She says, “Why urge ahead your supercilious feet? /Scorn will efface each footprint that you make.” She continues on to say, “Your shoulders towering high above the throng, /Your head thrown back in right, barbaric song/Palm trees and mangoes stretched before your eyes, /Let others toil and sweat for labor’s sake, /And wring from grasping hands their meed of gold. and (stanzas 6-8), (p1372).

In the midst of a long passage on black people in his Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson (who sniffed that [Phyllis] Wheatley’s poetry was “below the dignity of criticism”) proposed that black inferiority- “in the endowment of both body and mind”- might be an unchangeable law of nature. (181)

In a 1925 essay entitled “The New Negro,” Alain Locke described this transformation as an embracing of a new psychology and spirit. Locke felt that it was imperative for the “New Negro” to “smash” all of the racial, social and psychological obstacles that had

Locke furthers this argument by using even more examples if diversity within the black race. Using different types of Judaism as an comparative example, Locke proceeds to refer to many different strains of black people - "...the conformist and non-conformist strains, the conformist elite and the racialist elite, the lily-white and the race-patriotic bourgeoisie, the folk and the ghetto peasant and the emerging Negro proletariat." These all represent types of black people. He is speaking of the blacks who conform to white norms versus those who don't, the rich who conform versus those who don't, the middle class blacks who pretend they are white versus those who are proud of their race, and

Though times have changed, Alain Locke tries to convey that meaning into many of his writings. Alain Locke has been an activist for the many years of the Harlem Renaissance. He spoke forward about how the ancestors of African American referred as the “Old Negros” and the newer generation referred to as the “New Negros” took different outlooks on life. American Negros goal in life at this point in time was to change their mentality. But how? Locke had introduced many readers to the vibrant wondrous world of African Americans. He opened the eyes to what American Negros can do and not what they cannot do, no one should be restricted by any boundaries.

The “new” negro no longer embodied “old” characteristics that defined a black man. Society had always taught a black man how to act; however, now he was adapting to the world. Locke declared that ‘the Old Negro’ had long become more of a myth than a man” (Locke, 1). A furthered and detailed definition of an “Old Negro” was that he “was a creature of moral debating historical controversy” (Locke, 1). The four

The Kansas City Call summed up the general mentality of African Americans during the 1920s with the statement “The New Negro does not fear the face of day.” (pg 118) Unlike the old days of slavery, African Americans had become more radical towards their oppressor and were beginning to organize as a people. Harlem Renaissance poet Claude Mckay embraced the “New Negro” archetype in his work by stating “If we must die, let it not be like hogs/ Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot….. Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack/ Pressed

Slavery is a contradictory subject in American history because “one hears…of the staid and gentle patriarchy, the wide and sleepy plantations with lord and retainers, ease and happiness; [while] on the other hand on hears of barbarous cruelty and unbridles power and wide oppression of men” (Dubois 2). Dubois’s The Negro in the United States is an autoethnographic text which is a representation “that the so-defined others

In 1925, philosopher and leading black intellectual Alain Locke published the short essay The New Negro. In this essay, Locke describes the contemporary conditions of black Americans, and discusses the trajectory and potential of black culture to affect global change in its historical moment (Locke 47). Locke wrote this essay in the midst of the Harlem Renaissance, a period in which black artists and intellectuals sought to reconceptualize black lives apart from the stereotypes and racist portrayals of prior decades (Hutchinson). The New Negro and the discourse around Locke’s work attempted to push forth a bold project: that of reshaping the cultural identity of black America with respect to the existent structures of American culture, as

During the time of Zora Neale Hurston, the cultural and social movement of the Harlem Renaissance inspired a new black cultural identity. The Harlem Renaissance was a “blossoming of African American culture, particularly in the creative arts, and the most influential movement in African American literary history” during the early twentieth century (Hutchinson). During this time, blacks were on a journey of self-discovery, remaking their collective image to define the New Negro. Black female writers of this time, such as Zora Neale Hurston, wrote about the everyday reality and struggles that average black women endured and conquered in order to move away from “Old Negro” ideas. Hurston believed the past image of the black individual to be degrading

Dunbar’s allegories center on the battles of equality and civil rights through African American heritage. Beginning in 1700s, enslavement demolished the lives of millions of African Americans who endured the pain both mentally and physically. “Ode to Ethiopia” graphically expressed that “slavery crushed thee with its heel/with thy dear blood of all gory” (5-6). Dunbar demanded that slavery caused cruel realities for thousands that left bloodstains as constant reminders. Instead of celebrating the heritage of African Americans, he rather focused on the annihilation that slavery caused and “the expression of pessimism as to the Negro’s future in America” (Brawley).

In her critical analysis of ‘Moral Saints’, Susan Wolf examines the concept of a moral saint in order to understand what exactly a moral saint would be like and why such an agent would be an unattractive individual. More so, she raises questions about the significance of this contradictory figure for moral philosophy. Looking first at the idea of moral sainthood from the ethics of common sense, Susan Wolf then considers what relations these have to the conclusions that can be drawn from both Utilitarian and Kantian moral theories. Having found these relations, Susan Wolf then speculates on the implications of these considerations for moral philosophy (Wolf, 1982, 419-420). As part of my essay, I aim to explore Susan Wolf’s argument of the ‘undesirable and unattractive’ life of a moral saint, and why she speculates such a view. Looking first at the distinguishing figures of the Loving Saint and the Rational Saint to which she bases her underlying characteristics on, I then look into Susan Wolf’s arguments in relation to Utilitarian and Kantian theories and how she speculates their undesirable notions that lead to the idea of moral sainthood. Having explored these speculations, I them aim to conclude on how Susan Wolf’s argument of the ‘unattractive’ moral saint is misunderstood, as she primarily bases her argument based on the idea of moral judgement.

A great part of the novel accentuates on the group of ex-slaves and how they figure out how to defeat the issue to return to typical life. In that capacity, the book addresses the distinction amongst man and creature because of extraordinary subjugation forced among the African-American individuals (Middleton 30). In its important outline of the Negro Community, complete with their trusts and