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

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 “jump at the sun.”
Eatonville--self-chosen birthplace (also chose a new birthdate: 1901)
family moved there--all black town like in novel
father was a mayor like Joe Starks, Janie’s second husband--a “big voice” in the town

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
At Howard Univ: Hurston was flamboyant and shocking--cocked hat, smoking in public
Studied under renowned anthropology scholar, Franz Boas
Fire! --Literary magazine of black culture---folded after first publication
field work--interviewing storytellers in Florida and hoodoo/voodoo doctors in New Orleans

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
Mule Bone--PLAY with Langston Hughes: argument over ownership; African American comedy of rural life--not using black sterotypes
Jonah’s Gourd Vine--about a Florida couple very like H’s parents
Mules and Men--Short Stories --southern culture: historically important as the “first book of African American folklore collected by a black American to be presented by a major publisher for a general reading audience.”
Tell My Horse--scholarly anthropological work; also published as Voodoo Gods: An Inquiry into Native Myths and Magic in Jamaica and Haiti
Moses, Man of the Mountain--3rd novel--rewriting of Exodus in style of southern African-American
Dust Tracks on a Road--autobiography--bothers some critics becaise down plays race as significant factor in her life
Seraph on the Suwanee--focuses on marriage of a white couple

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.”
Note that all these critics were male. Quite possibly offended by the portrayal of black men in the novel.
Richard Wright’s criticism was very damaging to Hurston’s reputation.
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] Novelist, Folklorist, Anthropologist
Alice Walker found H’s grave and provided stone and epitaph

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
Alice Walker: Hurston is her literary mother and sister
Subjugation of black race = subjugation of women within marriage

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 <
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12. facultystaff.richmond.edu/~rreilly/Women/Zora..