Hurston Picture for US Postal Stamp, 2003 Zora Neale
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.”
Out in the World At 13: taken out of school At 16: traveling theater company
Education and Career Howard University (1920) Harlem Renaissance 1927: founded Fire! Barnard College Columbia University Anthropology and Folklore Teacher, librarian, and domestic
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
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
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
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
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] Novelist, Folklorist, Anthropologist
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
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, Introduction. I Love Myself When I Am Laughing. Alice Walker, Ed. New York: The Feminist Press, Zora Neale Hurston. Biography. Contemporary Literary Criticism. Literature Resource Center, January Images: