Zora Neale Hurston

1
Zora Neale
Picture for US Postal Stamp, 2003
Hurston
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Early Life

• 1891 1960
• I grew like a gourd
• and yelled bass like a gator.
• Notasulga, Alabama
• Eatonville, Florida
• Father carpenter, preacher, mayor
• Mother died 1904 jump at the sun.

3
Out in the World

• At 13 taken out of school
• At 16 traveling theater company

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Education and Career

• Howard University (1920)
• Harlem Renaissance
• 1927 founded Fire!
• Barnard College
• Columbia University
• Anthropology and Folklore
• Teacher, librarian, and domestic

5
Work for Benefactor

• Mrs. R. Osgood Mason of Park Ave. New York
• Monthly allowance for 5 years to collect
  folklore of the South
• Criticized for flattering letters

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Other Works

• Jonahs Gourd Vine, 1934 1991
• Mules and Men, 1935
• Their Eyes Were Watching God 1937
• Tell My Horse, 1938
• Moses, Man of the Mountain, 1939
• Dust Tracks on a Road, 1942
• Seraph on the Suwanee, 1948

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Early Critical Reception of Their Eyes Were
Watching God

• Sterling Brown It does not depict the harsher
  side of black life in the South
• Richard Wright It carries no theme, no message,
  no thought, but is like a minstrel show.
• Benjamin Brawley Her interest . . . Is not in
  solving problems, the chief concern being with
  individuals.

Richard Wright
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Affirmative View of African American
Culture

• But I am not tragically colored. There is no
  great sorrow damned up in my soul, nor lurking
  behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not
  belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who
  hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown
  dirty deal and whose feelings are hurt about it.
  . . . No, I do not weep at the worldI am too
  busy sharpening my oyster knife.
• --How It
  Feels to Be Colored Me
• Politically conservative in 1950s.
• Opposed 1954 Supreme Court desegregation decision

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Last Years

• Arrested in 1948
• Solitary retirement in Florida
• Died in a welfare home
• Buried in an unmarked grave
• A Genius of the South 1901 sic---1960.
  Novelist, Folklorist, Anthropologist

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Current Critical Issues

• Alice Walker There is no book
• more important to me.
• Female bonding ? self-definition
• Questions about voice
• Role of folklore magic of 3s,
• tale of courtly love, symbols
• that aid in retelling

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Bibliography

• Crabtree, Claire. The Confluence of Folklore,
  Feminism and Black Self-Determination in Zora
  Neale Hurstons Their Eyes Were Watching God.
  The Southern Literary Journal, 172 (54-66)
• Jordan, Jennifer. Feminist Fantasies Zora Neale
  Hurstons Their Eyes Were Watching God. Tulsa
  Studies in Womenaposs Literature. 71 (105-17).
• Saunders, James Robert. Womanism as the Key to
  Understanding Zora Neale Hurstons Their Eyes
  Were Watching God and Alice Walkers The Color
  Purple. The Hollins Critic. 254 (1-11).
• Washington, Mary Helen. Foreword. Their Eyes Were
  Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. New York
  Perennial Classics, 1998.
• ----------. Introduction. I Love Myself When I Am
  Laughing. Alice Walker, Ed. New York The
  Feminist Press, 1979.
• Zora Neale Hurston. Biography. Contemporary
  Literary Criticism. Literature Resource Center,
  January 2003. lthttp//www.galenet.comgt
• Images
• http//www.americanplacetheatre.org/stage/index.ph
  p?optioncom_contenttaskviewid47Itemid57
• http//www.loc.gov/wiseguide/jan04/zora.html
• http//www.nndb.com/people/237/000084982/
• http//xroads.virginia.edu/MA01/Grand-Jean/Hursto
  n/Chapters/patron.html