20. Harlem Renaissance.docx

20. Harlem renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance refers to the African-American boom of cultural expression that peaked in the 1920s. Harlem- neighborhood of New York City, was at the center of what was first called the New Negro Movement and then the Harlem Renaissance (named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke). Many French-speaking black writers from African and Caribbean colonies who lived in Paris were also influenced by the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was a celebration of African-American heritage expressed through an outpouring of art, literature, music and dance.

The Harlem Renaissance was helped along by intellectuals and the expansion of urban cultures. Artistic expression and articulated appreciation of African-American culture helped to get white Americans to take notice of the talents of black Americans for the first time. The Harlem Renaissance succeeded in destroying some racist stereotypes through brilliant works in song, dance, paint and print.

For the first time, white-owned publishing houses published books by black authors. Some white Americans helped to promote the literary works of black Americans to the white community. Black-owned businesses helped black artists. The Harlem Renaissance was about being proud to be African-American, or a black American.

Black figures and not just white figures were now being depicted in American art. Black musicians were playing to white crowds. Jazz and blues as well as gospel types of music were very popular during the Harlem Renaissance. African-American plays, poetry, fiction and essays were produced at a high rate.

New York City became a very important center of this expanding "Negro" middle class. In the nineteenth century, the district had been built as an exclusive suburb for the white middle and upper middle classes, with stately houses, grand avenues and amenities such as the Polo Grounds and an opera house. During the enormous influx of European immigrants in the late nineteenth century, the once exclusive district was abandoned by the native white middle-class. Harlem became an African-American neighborhood in the early 1900s. In 1910. The Harlem Renaissance grew out of the changes that had taken place in the African American community since the abolition of slavery. Industrialization was attracting people to cities from rural areas and gave rise to a new mass culture (the great Migration). and the First World War, which had created new industrial work opportunities for tens of thousands of people.

he first stage of the Harlem Renaissance started in the late 1910s. 1917 saw the premiere of Three Plays for a Negro Theatre. These plays, written by white playwright Ridgely Torrence, featured Negro actors conveying complex human emotions and yearnings. They rejected the stereotypes of the blackface and minstrel show traditions. James Weldon Johnson in 1917 called the premieres of these plays "the most important single event in the entire history of the Negro in the American Theater." Another landmark came in 1919, when Claude McKay published his militant sonnet "If We Must Die". Although the poem never alluded to race, to Negro readers it sounded a note of defiance in the face of racism and the nationwide race riots and lynchings then taking place. By the end of the First World War, the fiction of James Weldon Johnson and the poetry of Claude McKay were describing the reality of contemporary Negro life in America.

Music

A new way of playing the piano called the Harlem Stride Style was created during the Harlem Renaissance, and helped blur the lines between the poor Negros and socially elite Negros. The traditional jazz band was composed primarily of brass instruments and was considered a symbol of the south, but the piano was considered an instrument of the wealthy. Jazz musicians at the time like Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Jelly Roll Morton, and Willie "The Lion" Smith were very talented and competitive, and were considered to have laid the foundation for future musicians of their genre.

Important

During this time period, the musical style of blacks was becoming more and more attractive to whites. White novelists, dramatists and composers started to exploit the musical tendencies and themes of African-American in their works. Composers used poems written by African American poets in their songs, and would implement the rhythms, harmonies and melodies of African-American music—such as blues, spirituals, and jazz—into their concert pieces.

Characteristics and themes

Characterizing the Harlem Renaissance was an overt racial pride that came to be represented in the idea of the New Negro, who through intellect and production of literature, art, and music could challenge the pervading racism and stereotypes to promote progressive or socialist politics, and racial and social integration. The creation of art and literature would serve to "uplift" the race.

     It has been argued that the Harlem Renaissance, or the New Negro Movement, is the defining moment in African American literature because of an unprecedented outburst of creative activity among black writers. The importance of this movement to African American literary art lies in the efforts of its writers to exalt the heritage of African Americans and to use their unique culture as a means toward re-defining African American literary expression.

While the Harlem Renaissance began as a series of literary discussions in the lower Manhattan (Greenwich Village) and upper Manhattan (Harlem) sections of New York City, it gained national force when Charles Spurgeon Johnson, editor of Opportunity, the official organ of the National Urban League, encouraged aspiring writers to migrate to New York in order to form a critical mass of young black creative artists. The great migration from rural America, from the Caribbean, and from Africa to northern American cities (such as New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.) between 1919 and 1926, in fact, allowed the Harlem Renaissance to become a significant cultural phenomenon. Black urban migration, combined with trends in American society as a whole toward experimentation during the 1920s, and the rise of radical black intellectuals — including Alain Locke, Marcus Garvey, founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and W. E. B. Du Bois, editor of The Crisis magazine — all contributed to the particular styles and unprecedented success of black artists during this period.

Among the poets, fiction writers, and essayists answering Johnson’s call were Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Helene Johnson, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, and Jean Toomer. Through their artistry, the literature of this period helped to facilitate a transformation from the psychology of the “Old Negro” (characterized by an implied inferiority of the post-Reconstruction era when black artists often did not control the means of production or editorial prerogatives) to the “New Negro” (characterized as self-assertive, racially conscious, articulate, and, for the most part, in charge of what they produced). Landmark texts that marked this transformation and encouraged increased exploration of African American experience through literature included The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922), edited by James Weldon Johnson and The New Negro (1925) by Locke. The short-lived literary magazine Fire!! (1926) also had a significant impact on the literary production because it represented the efforts of younger African American writers (such as Hughes and Hurston) to claim their own creativity apart from older artists (such as DuBois and James Weldon Johnson), as well as to establish autonomy from potential white exploiters.

With greater possibilities for artistic self-determination, the writers of the Harlem Renaissance produced a sizable body of work, often exploring such themes as alienation and marginality. Several writers, including Hughes, Hurston, Larsen, and Toomer relied particularly on the rich folk tradition (oral culture, folktales, black dialect, jazz and blues composition) to create unique literary forms. Other writers, such as Cullen, McKay and Helene Johnson wrote within more conventional literary genres as a way to capture what they saw as the growing urbanity and sophistication of African Americans. The literature of the Harlem Renaissance, therefore, reflects the multiple ways that black experience in America was perceived and expressed in the first decades of the twentieth century.

The Harlem Renaissance appealed to a mixed audience. The literature appealed to the African-American middle class and to whites. Magazines such as The Crisis, a monthly journal of the NAACP, and Opportunity, an official publication of the National Urban League, employed Harlem Renaissance writers on their editorial staffs; published poetry and short stories by black writers; and promoted African-American literature through articles, reviews, and annual literary prizes

Unprepared for the rude shock of the Great Depression, the Harlem Renaissance ended abruptly because of naive assumptions about the centrality of culture, unrelated to economic and social realities.

Of mice and men

The American dream ideally constitutes life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as stated by America's forefathers in the Declaration of Independence.  This vision has been extremely warped in the 20th century to fit the new breed of Americans, which are greedy and self-centered.  The main characters opinions in the novel Of Mice and Men of The American Dream substantially differs from each other, and from today's society.

Of Mice and Men takes place in the 1930's of America during the Great Depression.  The American dream was no more, and the land of opportunity had become the land of misfortune.  It was during this time that many farmers best hope for a new life lied in California.

     In come the two main characters of Of Mice and Men, George and Lennie, two migrant workers on the run and looking for a job.  George is a "small and quick," man, who may sometimes seem like he dislikes Lennie's company, but in actually is very devoted to him (pg. 2). Lennie is "a huge man," who is somewhat mentally retarded, and a reveres George's every word (pg. 2).  The two are best friends, and how ever different they may seem both share a common goal.  Their main ambition is to "get the jack together," purchase a few acres of land they can call their own, "an' live off the fatta the lan'" (pg. 14).  To own a humble home, where they can work for themselves and be free of the persecution and scrutiny of society.  A kind of sanctuary from the flings and arrows of the outside world, where it seems Lennie was not meant to live in.

     Unlike Lennie, all Curly's wife longs for is to experience the world for herself.  She is virtually a prisoner in her own home, devoid of the power to change her fate.  When she was young, she dreamt of becoming a famous actress in a "show," but when she married Curly, her entire life changed for the worse.  After her marriage, the shattered remains of her dreams and a husband who did not love her was all she had left.

    The futility of George and Lennie's struggle for their little piece of the American dream is best summed up by Crooks when he said that he's "seen hundreds of men come by on the road an' on the ranches, with their bindles on their back an' that same damn thing in their heads.  Hundreds of them.  They come, an' they quit an' go on; an' every damn one of `em's got a little piece of land in his head.  An' never a God damn one of the get it.  Just like heaven," (pg. 74).

The American Dream: Everyone has a dream to strive for. The poor ranch hands wish to be their own bosses, and actually have stability in their lives.

The term was first used by James Truslow Adams in his book The Epic of America which was written in 1931. He states:

              "The American Dream is "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to achieve the fullest stature of which they are capable of, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the circumstances of birth or position."

"'Well,' said George, 'we'll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens. And when it rains in the winter, we'll just say the hell with goin' to work, and we'll build up a fire in the stove and set around it an' listen to the rain comin' down on the roof...'"

Their perfect world is one of independence. Workers like Lennie and George have no family, no home, and very little control over their lives. They have to do what the boss tells them and they have little to show for it. They only own what they can carry. Therefore, this idea of having such power over their lives is a strong motivation.

n      George and Lennie have a dream, even before they arrive at their new job on the ranch, to make enough money to live "off the fat of the land" and be their own bosses. Lennie will be permitted, then, to tend the rabbits.

n      Candy, upon hearing about the dream, wanted to join them so that he would not be left alone.

n      Crooks, the Negro outcast, wanted to join them so that he wouldn't be alone.

The Futility of the American Dream (*In the context of the novel!!)

George and Lennie’s dream of owning a farm, which would enable them to sustain themselves, and, most important, offer them protection from an inhospitable world, represents a prototypically American ideal.

              Their journey, which awakens George to the impossibility of this dream, sadly proves that the bitter Crooks is right: such paradises of freedom, contentment, and safety are not to be found in this* world.

Dreams

n      Dreams are one of the ways in which the characters combat the loneliness and hopelessness of their existence.

n      The most obvious example is the dream farm, a dream shared at first only by George and Lennie, but which later spreads to include Candy and Crooks.

n      Crooks reveals that it is the favourite dream of the itinerant ranch hands:

n      'Seems like ever' guy got land in his head.'

n      It is a powerful dream, however, and even the cynical Crooks falls under its spell for a short time.

n      To Lennie, the dream is an antidote to disappointment and loneliness, and he often asks George to recite the description of the farm to him.

n      Curley's wife is another who has dreams, her fantasies of a part in the movies and a life of luxury. Part of her dissatisfaction with her life is that it can never measure up to her dreams.

n      Significantly, none of the characters ever achieve their dreams.

The Impossibility of the American Dream (spark notes)

Most of the characters in Of Mice and Men admit, at one point or another, to dreaming of a different life. Before her death, Curley’s wife confesses her desire to be a movie star. Crooks, bitter as he is, allows himself the pleasant fantasy of hoeing a patch of garden on Lennie’s farm one day, and Candy latches on desperately to George’s vision of owning a couple of acres. Before the action of the story begins, circumstances have robbed most of the characters of these wishes. Curley’s wife, for instance, has resigned herself to an unfulfilling marriage. What makes all of these dreams typically American is that the dreamers wish for untarnished happiness, for the freedom to follow their own desires. George and Lennie’s dream of owning a farm, which would enable them to sustain themselves, and, most important, offer them protection from an inhospitable world, represents a prototypically American ideal. Their journey, which awakens George to the impossibility of this dream, sadly proves that the bitter Crooks is right: such paradises of freedom, contentment, and safety are not to be found in this world.