Journal #7

Journal #7: create a pastiche, matching Hurston' style and themes as closely as possible. After you complete your pastiche, write a statement explaining some of the decisions you made in order to match Hurston's writing and objectives.

“And so Ed’s thoughts turned to Greed. Greed, that unstoppable monster that consumes even the best of us. The one that lurks on the outside, waiting for the moment when ambition strikes. What need does Greed have for a home, when it’s home is wherever there is human desire? It sits in the deepest, darkest crevices of our minds. Sits patiently, waiting for the moment that it can turn our innocent goals and yearnings into avaricious desire. Its been sitting there since the minute we were born. He had already been taken by his addiction to success. Poor Alphonse, fighting an unending battle all by his lonesome. His friends suggested that he stop, take a break, step back and look at what he had accomplished but he refused. All his friends, forever complacent, knew only about standing still, and nothing about his struggle to always gain.  He’d never be okay as long as there was something left to acquire, to take and make his own. That’s what he thought. But his friends knew that every story must come to an end, every race must have a finish line. And even if he didn’t know, he would find out in time, for his friends had gathered with concern. No one had the nerve to ask what was going on in his mind. They just sat and waited. Ambition, that drug that keeps on giving."

I chose greed for my pastiche, for no particular reason. Other than using her sentence structure i also kept the whole passage vague, I don't specify what Al is trying to achieve or gain, i simply state that he wants something, and even when he gets it there will always be more, hence the topic of this passage: Greed.