Week 10, entry one

“Drenched in Light” and some from Home to Harlem and other earlier works

I enjoyed reading “Drenched in Light” because I found the protagonist Isie’s zest so refreshing from other readings such as Bennett’s poem “Hatred” and Hughes’ serious essay “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain.” Characters around Isie seem preoccupied with their own weighty thoughts such as Isie’s grandmother and her antiquated ideals of womanly behavior or the white woman and her melancholy. These attitudes almost appear comical in light of Isie’s carefree nature. Her chief activity is spent looking out onto the road, something fraught with metaphorical import, but for her the activity seems thoroughly based in passing the time, amusing herself with her own thoughts, etc. In some ways she reminds me of Jake from McKay’s Home to Harlem because in the chapter “Snowstorm in Pittsburgh” we see Jake seemingly reject the gaudy symbolism of Pittsburgh the narrator lays out in the opening lines.

Now that’s interesting to explore what it means that a mid-20s man and a child can have that much in common. Just as far as investigating their respective outlooks and what those outlooks mean in the context of the narrative, the social events at the time (such as the Harlem Renaissance and idea of racial uplift), etc.

But still in the light of other readings some parts of “Drenched in Light” read with a slight sting. When Isie is dancing in front of that gaping crowd in red, it is hard not to call the image of Cordelia or Karintha. But I think what makes David Levering Lewis laud the work is its commitment to storytelling, not the grandiose meaning behind actions. You can project Isie to any one of those futures but if that happens it is not because Hurston foreshadows in any way that eventual reality, but rather she authentically tells of a little black girl in Florida and does so with incredible clarity and vividness.