Carlton Ritz – Color Struck

This week’s story is called “Color Struck”. It is a play compiled within the book, Fire!!, which was published in 1926. The play was written and structured by the author Zora Neale Hurston. The story follows a group of African Americans in the 20th century who are going to perform in a “cake walk”, which was a dance competition with a large cake prize. The play mainly focuses on the contestants from Jacksonville primarily the characters John, Emma, and Eiffe. The story is broken into four main scenes that guide the plot. The characters begin on a train as they are making their journey to the competition. We find out that John and Emma are in some sort of relationship and are also long time dance partners. Emma and John are deeply in love but Emma shows many signs of jealousness right off the bat. Primarily she gets upset with any interaction John has with Eiffe, who is also a talented dancer. When the group arrives at the competition they have a big feast each with their respective couple. Once again John has an interaction here with Eiffe that makes Emma jealous and she points more to how Eiffe is of lighter skin. After they try out for the competition John and Emma win for their town but full of jealousy and anger Emma holds back from competing. John ends up dancing with Eiffe and winning the entire dance. The story then turns to twenty years later where Emma is living alone with a very sickly daughter. John, who had already been married for a long time, had recently lost his wife and tracked down Emma. He asks her to marry him and live the rest of their lives together but also discovers Emma’s overly sick daughter. He pushes her to get a doctor but Emma is very reluctant. He then catches a glimpse of the girl and sees that she is mixed with a light skin tone. When Emma leaves to get the doctor he attempts to tend to her which enrages Emma. This leads John to realize that Emma still holds some hatred towards people who are not as dark as herself or of white descent. The play is organized into four main acts in order to build the character development and create the growing tension introduced into the story. It begins with a simple plot and small conflict of what seems to be jealousy but overtime builds into some form of racism. The story uses some situational irony as Emma had previously shown hate towards people who were white and in the end has one of her own. Overall I enjoyed the text. I liked that it was in the form of a play in some ways because it gave more description and understanding into how the characters were feeling and actually acting. I found it somewhat difficult to understand at first because of the outdated or certain language that I do not use. I found most compelling the structure of the conflict and how it first seemed to be jealousy but turned into a targeted hate. I also liked how it poses the question of Emma being racist or taking a stance for her own people and then at the end the answer seems to come forward.