"Let her settled at 'Metts' and cook a pan of gingerbread then we'll all go down and tell lies and eat gingerbread." Pg. 407 From Mules and Men/Zora by Neal Hurston.
Word Count: 250
I have never read anything like this text by Neal Hurston called From Mules and Men / Zora. The story started out by talking about what the audience would believe to be the center of the story. Which is storytelling, the author starts out talking about why they are leaving home and going north in order to gain new ideas, thoughts, and stories. The way in which they talk about storytelling is by calling them lies, which plays into the idea that we are peaking into their culture and customs anthropologically. The story shifts though and starts to talk about a woman in Voodoo and then talks about the author learning everything there is to Voodoo and becoming an apprentice.
The quote that I had chosen above was in order to discuss the idea of the “lies” themselves or storytelling. The reason the author is leaving is to find new things in order to talk about and bring back to their culture and customs. The idea that these are lies shows that they believe that storytelling is made up but it is made up for entertainment as they all hang out with each other and share them as a community. Although the author does tell them a lie that they will tell others because it is valuable. This is where the audience sees the idea that storytelling is a link that ties everyone together and is used to share culture, and lessons of life in order to teach valuable incite.
I agree, I have never read anything like this before either. I thought in the beginning, it was a little confusing to read their dialogue, because it wasn't proper english so it was hard to understand. This story almost seemed like someone with two different lives were writing it, just because of how different the two stories were from one another. Seeing Zora leave and try to find new interests and new things she could bring back to her culture was very interesting to me because I feel like not many people do this. I thought this was a very interesting story because of how diverse it was and I have never read about anyone going through this voodoo stuff before, so it was interesting to read/learn about.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you when you say this was a reading we have had nothing like. Storytelling is a big part of many traditions and they usually have to do with their culture as well. Voodoo, being a very speculated practice, comes along with lies which causes deception among storytellers.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you spoke about the reason the author is leaving is to find new things in order to talk about and bring back to their culture and customs. It is so important to bring attention to this culture, especially as a women, who would most likely normally be silenced.
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