Zora Neale Hurston

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Zora Neale Hurston
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Biography

• 1891(?)- 1960- Grew up in Florida
• Poor- lived with series of relatives in early
  life
• Started college at Howard, but had to drop out
  due to lack of - then got scholarship to
  Barnard (in NYC)
• 1920s Became protégé of Franz Boas- also
  studied with Margaret Mead
• 1920s very social- hung out in NYC with the
  literati of the H.R.- wrote plays, short
  stories such as Sweat (1927)
• In late 1920s, returned to south to do research-
  found education had isolated her from roots- also
  later traveled in Caribbean

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Biography- cont.

• In 1930s-1940s, wrote several books that were
  fictionalized pictures of conditions for
  African-Americans in South. (Their Eyes Were
  Watching God, Dust Tracks)
• Work not very well-received at time- Hurston had
  to take odd jobs to support herself, and died in
  obscurity in 1960
• Writers like Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, and
  Maya Angelou revived her work in the 1970s-
  now considered great literature.

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Relationship to Other Figures

• Friends
• Liked Washingtons self-help message and was
  supporter of Garveys United Negro Industrial
  Association (UNIA)
• hung out with folks like Langston Hughes, Wallace
  Thurman and Jessie Fauset (she referred to them
  as the niggerati)
• Mixed well with rich whites like Fannie Hurst
  (early feminist) and Charlotte Osgood Mason (rich
  old white lady)
• Introduced friends like Hughes to these funders
• Enemies
• Race Relations thought races should be apart-
  annoyed DuBois-
• Politics this alienated her from writers like
  Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison who were
  communists
• Personality Very in-your-face
• Feminism Ahead of her time- annoyed male writers
  

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Themes- Dialect

• Hurston is an anthropologist- trying to capture
  speech for science.
• Also, like Hughes, viewed speech as lyrical and
  beautiful- not shameful
• Was heavily criticized, however, by DuBois and
  others for perpetuating stereotypes
• Still controversial
• Sweat- heavy in dialect

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Themes- Common Folk

• Like Hughes, Hurston was interested in the lives
  of the poor and uneducated
• Celebrated their wit and strength
• Also like Hughes, this got her criticized by
  haters like DuBois and the old guard
• Sweat arguably Sykes is just such a
  sterotypical character

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Themes- Religion

• Hurstons dad was Baptist preacher
• Disapproved of her reading and writing
• As anthropologist, fascinated with the role of
  religion in poor A-As lives
• Notice Adam and Eve imagery in Sweat-

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Themes- Feminism

• Controversial whether ZNH is truly feminist
• Pro- Her own life and attitude was far ahead of
  time- also work like Sweat agues for
• Con- Some troubled by dependence of some
  characters on men, as well as Hurstons
  conservative politics
• Critics at time gave her a hard time for
  emphasizing the plight of women over that of
  African Americans
• Feminism in Sweat- phallic imagery of snake and
  whip, man destroying self with snake, etc.