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Article: "Papa Legba, ouvrier barriere por moi passer": Esu in Their Eyes & Zora Neale Hurston's Diasporic Modernism.
- Article from:
- African American Review
- Article date:
- March 22, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 African American Review. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Papa Legba, opener of gates, (opportunities) is always the first to receive sacrifice in any ritual invocation of the loa.... they sing "Papa Legba, ouvrier barriere por moi passer." (Tell 148)
She thought awhile and decided that her conscious life had commenced at Nanny's gate. (Their Eyes 182)
Real gods require blood. (Their Eyes 293)
Their Eyes Were Watching God is a novel of transitions. At one crucial moment, as Joe Starks funeral ends, Hurston marks the transition and images the "Little Lord of the Crossroads ... leaving Orange County as he had come--with the outstretched hand of power" (246). To those who read Their Eyes as an American ...