Blog 3: Reading Analysis

The story “The Gilded Six-Bits” by Zora Neale Hurston was a very interesting story about a couple who went through a tough struggle in their relationship. Joe and Missie May are a married African American couple who live in a poor area somewhere in a city. At the time the story takes place, a new man has moved into the neighborhood and has opened up an ice cream store. He also wears lots of expensive looking gold and other nice items to show off his wealth. This leads to many women crowding him, wanting him for his money. The story goes on and eventually Missie May cheats on her husband Joe with the new man in the town. Joe is truly hurt and recovers some of the mans gold. He sees that it is fake and leaves it for his wife to see. When she sees it she is shocked in disbelief and realizes the mistake she had made. Joe is willing to take her back, but things are awkward between them for awhile. In the end she has a baby and they are close to being back to normal.

This story shows how important it is to not let money or any material things to get in your way of how they really feel deep down inside. In this story, the wife cheats on her husband because another man looked like he was really wealthy when he was not. Instead she herself was cheated by a trick that she was gullible enough to fall for. In this story, Missie May makes two crucial mistake. The first was that she trusted a stranger in the new man to the town and slept with him behind Joe’s back. The second continues on from the first and that is she betrayed the love she truly had for her husband Joe. Unfortunately, she does not truly recognized how much he means to her until after she had committed the problem and completely when she had her child.

Also, both “I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed” by Edna St. Vincent Millay and “To His Coy Mistress” by Andre Marvell display some of the very same themes and qualities that Hurston’s story displayed. Both of the poems included parts that discussed the idea of their not being enough time for them to be with each other.