Their Eyes Were Watching God

I stand before ya’ll today wid the purpose of telling a story. Rather, my intentions are to tell ya’ll, not preach, a story – a story of facts wid only a minimal amownt of peppering wid mah emotional bias. Mah story of self-exploration, self-empowerment, and ultimately, self-realization, begins with mah birth as a mule. What’s a mule you might ask? A mule in the most literal sense is a half-horse, half-donkey. All you old-generational folks know dat “de nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see” (14). A mule can be compared to a mulatto, which brings me to the start of mah journey. A mulatto, half-black, half-white, was wut God fated me to be. I was born confused wid no identity. I wanted to shine mah own light, fullow mah own path without worrying about de darkness in an attempt to discover truth – mah pear tree.
Slavery kept mah Nanny from fulfilling her “dreams of whut a woman oughta be and to do” (16). Likker and a sick ol’ man kept mah ma from ...