Zora Hurston The life of a famous folk writer

Overview of Zora Hurston

1. Hurston
Picture for US Postal Stamp, 2003
Zora Neale

2. 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

4. 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

6. Other Works
•Jonah’s 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

7. 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

8. 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 world—I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.
--“How It Feels to Be Colored Me”
•Politically conservative in 1950s.
•Opposed 1954 Supreme Court desegregation decision

9. 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

10. 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 3’s,
tale of courtly love, symbols
that aid in retelling

11. Bibliography
Crabtree, Claire. “The Confluence of Folklore, Feminism and Black Self-Determination in Zora Neale
Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.” The Southern Literary Journal, 17:2 (54-66)
Jordan, Jennifer. “Feminist Fantasies: Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Tulsa
Studies in Women&apos’s Literature. 7:1 (105-17).
Saunders, James Robert. “Womanism as the Key to Understanding Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes
Were Watching God and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple.” The Hollins Critic. 25:4 (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. <http://www.galenet.com>
Images:
http://www.americanplacetheatre.org/stage/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=47&Itemid=57
http://www.loc.gov/wiseguide/jan04/zora.html
http://www.nndb.com/people/237/000084982/
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Grand-Jean/Hurston/Chapters/patron.html