Blog Post #1-Hurston's I get Born and Walker's In Search of Our Mothers' Garden

Like many of you, I really loved I Get Born by Zora Neale Hurston and In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens by Alice Walker. I have read books by both authors previously and I really enjoyed them, so I was excited to read these passages. I read and completed an extensive annotation project on The Color Purple during my senior year and I read Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston last year, and I remembered being fond of both writers.  I was also excited to read these passages because they were both written by African American women and I wanted to see how that would impact their lives, if at all after our discussion about race the other day. Along with this, I found the connection between Hurston and Walker interesting and wanted to learn more about it and I found this interesting article. (http://chrisdanielle.tripod.com/alicebio_4.html)

In Hurston’s I Get Born, there were a few things that stood out to me. I really like Hurston’s writing style. First, it made me very sad that Hurston’s father was not very open to having another daughter from the beginning. On page 290, Hurston stated that, “I don’t think he ever got over the trick he felt I played on him by being born a girl.” I found it interesting that he only wanted one girl, and Hurston’s older sister, Sarah, was the favorite child out of all the children that he had, boys included. She was also similar to him in the fact that he liked to travel. However, he didn’t pay much attention to her. It was weird that he could basically rank one daughter first, and the other last, despite the fact that Zora looked so similar to him. I also was sad to find out that Hurston’s mother died when she was so young. I was amazed that she was able to remain so positive throughout her writing, despite the fact that she had such a difficult life. The fact that her father saw her as inferior to her other siblings did not get in the way of her success. She kept fearlessly following wherever the path would lead her.

I also thoroughly enjoyed In Search of Our Mothers’ Garden by Alice Walker. I thought Walker made a lot of really great points. I thought it was interesting that like other women we have read about, Walker shed light on the fact that it was harder for women to express their artistic side. Many women would never have dared to attempt the pen, write a song, paint a picture, etc. There could have been millions of brilliant women in the past that never had the chance to express themselves. However, despite the fact that this was true, women did not let this stop them and attempted to foster creative growth in their children, therefore giving them more opportunities. For example, Walker states, “And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the relative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see; or, like a sealed flower, they could not read’ (page 329).They would find other outlets for their creativity, such as gardening. They would pass it down in subtle ways, such as storytelling. This was an individual strength for women and caused Walker to find her own strength. This is shown in the quote, “Guided by my heritage of a love and beauty and a respect for strength –in search of my mother’s garden, I found my own” (page 331). It made her children respect her. Not only was the garden beautiful, but it represented a lot of these ideals. Walker’s mother had a huge influence on her life, which is opposite on Hurston because her lack of a mother is one of the characteristics that impacted her most. Her mother did do much for the family, wanted the best for her children, and taught them well. A mother-daughter relationship is truly a beautiful thing and Walker was aware of this. She was lucky to have such a great influence in her life.