In order to understand this quote, we need to look at the context in which it was said. Zora Neale Hurston is explaining her identity as a "colored" person and the events which shaped her life and brought her to an awareness of this status based on the color of her skin.
In the paragraph and a half leading up to this quote, Hurston goes to great pains to explain that she is not bitter about what her predecessors, as slaves, went through in order to acquire freedom. Nor is she bitter about her own lot in life.
The words "slavery is the price I paid for civilization" place the struggle for freedom firmly in the past. The writer's focus, in sharp contrast to this, is on the future and everything that it has to offer her.
Zora Neale Hurston's "How it Feels to be Colored Me" is an exuberant statement about individual identity. As such, Hurston does not want to be weighed down by events or circumstances outside of her control. In the seventh paragraph of her essay, Hurston remarks about the history of slavery and its impact on her life; this is where the statement "Slavery is the price I paid for civilization" occurs.
To understand this line, we should look at it in the context of this full paragraph. Hurston begins by saying that people are always reminding her that she is descended from slaves. However, she says she does not feel "depression" as a result of this fact. She asserts, "Slavery is sixty years in the past." Hurston uses the metaphor of a race to describe what it's like to be an African American woman living several decades after the end of slavery:
The terrible struggle that made me an American out of a potential slave said "On the line!" The Reconstruction said "Get set!" and the generation before said "Go!" I am off to a flying start and I must not halt in the stretch to look behind and weep. Slavery is the price I paid for civilization, and the choice was not with me.
She admits that there were stages of development between slavery and the present day, but Hurston also feels that she is past those growing pains and ready to thrive. She feels it will be detrimental to her progress to "look behind and weep." She feels that slavery was a circumstance totally out of her control, and she cannot weaken herself by dwelling on it.
Again, in some ways, Hurston seems to feel like slavery has nothing to do with her life. On the other hand, she feels her history gives her some advantage:
No one on earth ever had a greater chance for glory. The world to be won and nothing to be lost. It is thrilling to think--to know that for any act of mine, I shall get twice as much praise or twice as much blame.
Hurston seems to think that having slave ancestors and being a minority in the U.S. is not a disadvantage but rather an opportunity. She likes the attention and the "glory" that she will receive for her achievements. She feels that she can win "the world" if she wants to. This is a very different perspective than we might expect, considering the brutality and lasting socioeconomic and psychological effects of slavery. But Hurston's mood in the essay is relentlessly positive. She is confident and self-assured, and she doesn't believe anyone's opinion, like those reminding her of her slave roots, can bring her down or change her sense of her self.
No comments:
Post a Comment