#AliceLovelace

[apliteraturecramsession]

Alice Lovelace's AP Literature Cram Session

If you're either refreshing for an exam or just want a summary, you're in the right place.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Welcome to the first edition of I DIDN"T KNOW THIS WOULD BE ON THE EXAM, AND SHIT! IT"S A BETTER OPTION THAN THE BOOKS I HAD TO READ FOR CLASS.

Their Eyes Were Watching God is the journey of Janie Crawford, an African American woman finding her way through life.

couple of notes before I start:

This book is written in phonetic english, and there is a huge important to dialect

Centered around an African American Woman in the south, and there are some sad but true instances of racism towards the end.

Around 200 pages, so If you have time to read it, I truely recommend it. There are some beautiful gems in here, along with the name for the title.

READ IT IF YOU CAN!! If not, here you go.

CHARACTERS:

Jaine: The protagonist who is an idealistic dreamer and spends the story chasing love and finding it. When she is faced with hardship, she stands strong until someone opens a new door. She ultimately has to learn to let go, but does not forget her lover.

Grandmother: Jaime’s grandmother who raised her, and wants the best for her, in her own way. She marries her off in an attempt to protect her.

Logan: Jaime’s first husband who doesn't love her, but attempts to take care of her, until she has had enough and runs away.

Jody Starks: Jaime’s second husband, who provides her with an escape and the illusion of love. Their relationship technically lasts until he dies.

Tea Cake: Jaime’s third husband, and true lover. He dies in an act of love for her and she ultimately has to return the favor.

SYNOPSIS:

It begins with a woman returning to her home after being gone for many years. She returns to the whispers and gossip of her town, but only sets the record straight when her friend comes to visit her, and so she begins her narrative. She starts at the very beginning with the fact that she was raised by her grandmother, not her mother. Her grandmother, who is unwilling to let Jaine live like either her mother or herself, decides that Jaime is old enough and marries her off to an older farmer. Jaine, however, is a dreamer and wants love for herself. So, when a younger man shows up on her doorstep, after fighting with her current husband, doesn’t hesitate to run off and marry the younger man, Jody. At first, everything seems to be going well for Jaine and Jody, who treats her like royalty, with him becoming mayor of a town and her clerking a shop. It soon becomes clear that he is isolating her, however, and when she tries to fight him on it, she gets shut down by her husband; this is described by Jaine as another dream dying. So, Jaine suffers in silence alone, until her husband begins to waste away, and after an argument, he dies escorted out by death and her words. After about nine months she is being courted by a younger man named Tea Cake, whom she has gone and truly fallen in love with. He becomes her dream, so she marries him and follows him down into the everglades. For a while it is truly bliss between the couple. He is a good and loving husband to her, who finally treats her well. They live well for a while, then the young couple get news of a hurricane. They decide not to leave their home, but once the hurricane strikes, they run east. Once they run, Jaine and Tea Cake get swept up in the storm, and when they are hanging on for dear life, a dog gets stuck with them, which attacks Jaine before Tea Cake rescues her and gets bitten on the face by the dog. Nothing much happens for a bit, until one day Tea Cake gets a bad headache and when he goes to drink water, he finds he can’t. After trying a couple more times, Jaine goes to fetch a doctor, who quietly tells her that it's too late for Tea Cake, that it was rabies and if they had caught it earlier it wouldn’t have been a problem. Jaine decides to stick it out with her husband and decides not to take him to a hospital and the doctor sends for some medicine which should arrive the next day. She finds a 6-chamber pistol that she decides to remove 3 bullets from, just in case. So she goes to bed and wakes to find him freaking out about her leaving and pulls out the gun, and pulls the trigger twice before she shoots him, killing him. The doctor finds her there holding the body of the man she loved. However, she is arrested and charged for murder but is acquitted. So, she returns home alone, and after telling all this to her friend, goes to sleep.

Themes (That You Won't Find on SparkNotes) :

 Memories and Maturity: throughout the story, there are many instances of Jaine being presented with the same choice more than once. She does not make the same choice when presented with the same options. Instead having grown and changed, maturing in her choices. 

“What  wouldn’t’ I given to be twelve years younger so i could b’lieve him” “Ah done lived grandma’s way, now Ah means to live mine.”

The influence of Dreams:

Jaine spends the entire story dreaming, from one thing to another. She dreams of love, and chases those throughout the story, leading her from one choice to the next, marking the passage of time. The stages of her life are marked by her dreams, and somewhere along the way, she learns to let each of them go. Which shows a beautiful growth of character, and a sense of personal peace she doesn’t get til the end of the narrative.

" Janie's first dream was dead, so she became a woman" "one way or another that took the bloom off things"

If you stuck around, here are a couple of helpful links

Pdf - https://emedicodiary.com/book/view/388/their-eyes-were-watching-god-pdf

Youtube summary - https://youtu.be/nq_xmL9gbkw?si=iawFZ23brTkirqLh

Sparknotes - https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/eyes/themes/

Hope this helps! If not don't hurt me :)

[africaforecast-blog]

Tomorrow! Artists Guides | Alice Lovelace Saturday, November 4, 2017 3pm Artist Guides is a series of public tours led by Georgia-based Black women cultural producers. Alice Lovelace, Community Based Writer and Organizer, will lead an interactive tour of our current exhibition, "Beverly Buchanan—Ruins and Rituals." Described as posessing "shaking power and ferocity," Alice Lovelace was an early collaborator of Beverly Buchanan's (1940-2015) and contributed to the work Shack Stories (Part I), an unpublished handmade book of ink and crayon drawings with watercolor and collaged typewritten text. Alice Lovelace will be able to privilege attendees with first-hand knowledge of working with the artist and the interdisciplinary nature of her collaboration style. #AliceLovelace #BeverlyBuchanan #RuinsandRituals #BeYourOwnMuse

[isaacsapphire]

@alicelovelace

that post about the human transit dude that’s going around doesnt link his blog, which is too bad imo b/c the blog is really interesting. he goes into more depth about how and why musk is an idiot and also talks a lot about general topics in transit.

politically its a bit eyerolly b/c he works as a consultant who has to pass himself off as politically neutral and it really shows but if youre interested in mass transit its a really interesting read. imo.

[sorcyress]

alicelovelace reblogged your photo:Dangling over a two story drop at the GrownUps...

Wait, WHERE IS THIS PLACE? I want to go, although I suppose it’s statistically unlikely that it’s actually in Boston…

No it totally is! The problem is that it's at the Boston Children's Museum, and most of the time, you need to locate a smallish child in order to get in. Once a year or so they have a GrownUps night though, where they sell drinks and play awesome music and don't let anyone under 21 in!