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Leadership In The Eatonville

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In the Eatonville story arc of the novel, Hurston has Joe Starks’ evolve into a leader she likens to a plantation figure in order to demonstrate how the development of African American society following white society’s model inevitably leads to a class division, which mirrors the relationship between blacks and whites, therefore dividing communities and leading blacks into a new kind of oppression. Upon his arrival in Eatonville with Janie, Joe immediately begins his search for a mayor to discuss business with, his goal being to invest in the development of the land. When two residents inform him that the land has no mayor, Starks immediately takes on the leadership role, “Ah’m buyin’ in here, and buyin’ in big. Soon’s we find some place to …show more content…
While Starks is black, he possesses materialistic values and has little regard for those beneath him in society, specifically his supposed fellow African Americans, effectively causing him to adopt the paradigm of traditional white authority in …show more content…
So when speakers stood up when the occasion demanded and said “Our beloved Mayor,” it was one of those statements that everybody says but nobody actually believes” (Hurston 48). In his fascination with industry and his hope to create a great American city in his development of Eatonville, Joe Starks effectively ushers in a period of great economic strides, while also becoming a classic authoritarian figure, alienated from his people as a result of class, and compromising the freedom of those he leads in the name of his own power. Through Joe Stark’s metamorphosis into a plantation owner-figure, Hurston seeks to make a statement that black society must not try to replicate white society, because although this might bring about financial gain, it will cause a class divide in society, resulting in class warfare, the loss of individual’s freedom to the hands of authoritarian leadership, and the recreation of the black and white power dynamic already present in America at the

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