“I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass” (Whitman, v. 1-5).
For many eras, authors and poets, like Walt Whitman have attempted to capture what it means to be an individual as a universal theme, and what it means to be an American. Multitudes of writers have come close to capturing the latter and been awarded many honors from literary societies. Still, there has never been a consensus on what exactly it means to “be an American” in character. However, some authors and poets have been able to emphasize numerous American …show more content…
Also, throughout her work in “The Gilded Six-Bits” and Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston brings to the light important social, economic and moral implications of racial relations between African-Americans and caucasian Americans and the prejudice held by the latter group. She observes and analyzes human nature as it applies to surrounding nature and one’s ability to persevere, thus bringing in a final element of respect for nature, symbolizing empathy for all living beings and their struggles to overcome. In the “Gilded Six-Bits,” the newly wedded wife, Missie May, cheats on her husband Joe, with a new wealthy business owner in order to receive gold from him, but when caught in the act, Joe finds that this gold is really just “two gilded six-bits” that resemble a gold, shirt piece, and that the business owner known as Otis, has done this to multiple women and also conned them. Before Missie knows this they both go through a hard patch, but Missie tries to make it up to him, Joe forgives her, and the relationship is restored with laughter. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character Janie Crawford, endures racism being taught to her by her grandmother and by the children at school who speak badly of her mother. She marries men who are incredibly verbally abusive, she is forced to marry, or who are generally very kind to her, but take advantage of her on rare occasion in cruel ways. During the trial after which the last described and best husband is killed by her in order to avoid getting hurt, the witnesses are all wealthier white women, and looked upon her with extreme kindness and with harsh words toward, the husband, Tea Cake, because of her skin color looking nearly caucasian. This was in spite of the fact that she loved her husband very much, but he was