On March 21, 1924, the National Urban League, spearheaded by Charles Johnson, held a dinner to introduce new literary talent to New York City's black community. This dinner party resulted in the Survey Graphic, a magazine whose attention was upon social and cultural pluralism, to publish a special Harlem edition, which would feature the works of Harlem's black writers and was to be edited by Alain Locke. Locke, a literary scholar, black philosopher, professor and authority on black culture, later expanded the Harlem special edition of the Survey Graphic into and anthology he titled The New Negro. Soon, the very cultural movement Survey Graphic hoped to shine light upon would be recognized as the New Negro Movement but later this movement later grew to be known as the Harlem Renaissance (wikipedia). From this cultural movement, an identity would grow. Represented in the writing and the ideas disseminating from Harlem at the time, the Harlem Renaissance has grown to represent a period of unparalleled progressive thought as well as the introduction of black ideas and art into American culture. No longer were Black writers imitating a white style of writing. An expression of black culture represented an equality and a pride in a race that for hundreds of years was supposedly second-class. This movement spawned the some of the most acclaimed African-American authors to date such as Langston Hughes, Wallace Thurman as well as Zora Neale Hurston; one of the most infamous and revolutionary authors the Harlem Renaissance would produce.
Understanding the ideals and themes of Zora Neale Hurston comes with an understanding of the upbringing and childhood she had. Born on the seventh of January 1981 in Notasluga, Alabama, Zora Neale Husto...
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...dgment, and Narrative in a Work of Zora Neale Hurston: Feminist Cultural Studies." New Essays on Their Eyes Were Watching God. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. 95-124.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Dust Tracks on a Road. New York Ny: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1969.
Plant, Deborah G. Every Tub Sits on It's Own Bottom. Chicago Il: University of Illinois Press, 1995.
Sundquist, Eric J. The Hammers of Creation: Folk Culture in Modern African-American Fiction. Athens Ga.: The University of Georgia Press, 1992.
Hemenway, Robert E. Zora Neale Hurston: a Literary Biography. Chicago Il: University of Illinois Press, 1977.
"Harlem Renaissance." Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia. 27 Mar. 2006. Wikipedia Foundation. 25 Mar. 2006 .
Johnson, Chuck. "Waste and Whiteness: Zora Neale Hurston and the Politics of Eugenics." African American Review Winter (2000).
The Harlem Renaissance is the name given to a period at the end of World War I through the mid-30s, in which a group of talented African-Americans managed to produce outstanding work through a cultural, social, and artistic explosion. Also known as the New Negro Movement. It is one of the greatest periods of cultural and intellectual development of a population historically repressed. The Harlem Renaissance was the rebirth of art in the African-American community mostly centering in Harlem, New York, during the 1920s. Jazz, literature, and painting emphasized significantly between the artistic creations of the main components of this impressive movement. It was in this time of great
Zora Neale Hurston and Maya Angelou are arguably the most influential writers of the mid 20th century . Their work has inspired young African Americans to have more confidence in their own abilities. Their work has also been studied and taught countless times in many schools across the U.S. But the main reason why their work is considered classics in American literature; is because their work stands as testament to the treatment, and struggles of African Americans in the mid 20th century America.
Like Irish oral tradition, storytelling is an incredibly important event in both African and African American communities. Through this storytelling the principles and values of African American culture was depicted. The reader sees the dichotomy between Hurston’s use of the third person narrative
Zora Neale Hurston grew up in Eatonville, Florida also known as “Negro Town” (Hurston, 1960, p.1). Not because of the town was full of blacks, but because the town charter, mayor, and council. Her home town was not the first Negro community, but the first to be incorporated. Around Zora becoming she experienced many hangings and riots. Not only did Zora experience t...
Zora Neale Hurston was, the daughter of a Baptist minister and an educated scholar who still believed in the genius contained within the common southern black vernacular(Hook http://splavc.spjc.cc.fl.us/hooks/Zora.html). She was a woman who found her place, though unstable, in a typical male profession. Hurston was born on January 7, 1891 in Eatonville, Florida, the first all-incorporated black town in America. She found a special thing in this town, where she said, "... [I] grew like a like a gourd and yelled bass like a gator," (Gale, 1). When Hurston was thirteen she was removed from school and sent to care for her brother's children. She became a member of a traveling theater at the age of sixteen, and then found herself working as a maid for a white woman. This woman saw a spark that was waiting for fuel, so she arranged for Hurston to attend high school in Baltimore. She also attended Morgan Academy, now called Morgan State University, from which she graduated in June of 1918. She then enrolled in the Howard Prep School followed by later enrollment in Howard University. In 1928 Hurston attended Barnard College where she studied anthropology under Franz Boas. After she graduated, Zora returned to Eatonville to begin work on anthropology. Four years after Hurston received her B.A. from Barnard she enrolled in Columbia University to begin graduate work (Discovering Authors, 2-4). Hurston's life seemed to be going well but she was soon to see the other side of reality.
Rosenblatt, Roger. “Roger Rosenblatt’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Rpt. in Modern Critical Views of Zora Neale Hurston. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1986. 29-33. Print.
According to www.PBS.org The Harlem Renaissance was a name given to the cultural, social, and artistic explosion that took place in Harlem between the end of World War I and the middle of the 1930s. During this period Harlem was a cultural center, drawing black writers, artists, musicians, photographers, poets, and scholars. Many had come from the South, fleeing its oppressive caste system in order to find a place where they could freely express their talents. The Renaissance was more than a literary movement: It involved racial pride, fueled in part by the militancy of the "New Negro" demanding civil and political rights.
The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and literary period of growth promoting a new African American cultural identity in the United States. The decade between 1920 and 1930 was an extremely influential span of time for the Black culture. During these years Blacks were able to come together and form a united group that expressed a desire for enlightenment. This renaissance allowed Blacks to have a uniform voice in a society based upon intellectual growth. The front-runners of this revival were extremely focused on cultural growth through means of intellect, literature, art and music. By using these means of growth, they hoped to destroy the pervading racism and stereotypes suffocating the African American society and yearned for racial and social integration. Many Black writers spoke out during this span of time with books proving their natural humanity and desire for equality.
Scott, Cynthia C. "Zora Neale Hurston's Sweat: Character and Metaphor in the Short Story." Yahoo! Voices (2007).
Zora Neale Hurston was a novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist. Zora plays an important role for the Harlem Renaissance. Zora Neale Hurston is considered one of the titans of twentieth-century African American literature. Despite that she would later fall into disgrace because of her firm views of civil rights, her lyrical writing which praise southern black culture has influenced generations of black American literary figures. Hurston’s work also had an impact on later black American authors such as Ralph Ellison, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison.
Zora Neale Hurston’s “Sweat” is a distressing tale of human struggle as it relates to women. The story commences with a hardworking black washwoman named Delia contently and peacefully folds laundry in her quiet home. Her placidity doesn’t last long when her abusive husband, Sykes, emerges just in time to put her back in her ill-treated place. Delia has been taken by this abuse for some fifteen years. She has lived with relentless beatings, adultery, even six-foot long venomous snakes put in places she requires to get to. Her husband’s vindictive acts of torment and the way he has selfishly utilized her can only be defined as malignant. In the end of this leaves the hardworking woman no choice but to make the most arduous decision of her life. That is, to either stand up for herself and let her husband expire or to continue to serve as a victim. "Sweat,” reflects the plight of women during the 1920s through 30s, as the African American culture was undergoing a shift in domestic dynamics. In times of slavery, women generally led African American families and assumed the role as the adherent of the family, taking up domestic responsibilities. On the other hand, the males, slaves at the time, were emasculated by their obligations and treatment by white masters. Emancipation and Reconstruction brought change to these dynamics as African American men commenced working at paying jobs and women were abandoned at home. African American women were assimilated only on the most superficial of calibers into a subcategory of human existence defined by gender-predicated discrimination. (Chambliss) In accordance to this story, Delia was the bread victor fortifying herself and Sykes. Zora Neale Hurston’s 1926 “Sweat” demonstrates the vigor as wel...
The Harlem Renaissance was a period of great rebirth for African American people and according to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, the “Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s.” Wikipedia also indicates that it was also known as the “Negro Movement, named after the 1925 Anthology by Alan Locke.” Blacks from all over America and the Caribbean and flocked to Harlem, New York. Harlem became a sort of “melting pot” for Black America. Writers, artists, poets, musicians and dancers converged there spanning a renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was also one of the most important chapters in the era of African American literature. This literary period gave way to a new type of writing style. This style is known as “creative literature.” Creative literature enabled writers to express their thoughts and feelings about various issues that were of importance to African Americans. These issues include racism, gender and identity, and others that we...
Appiah, K.A. and Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. eds. Zora Neale Hurston: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. New York: Amistad Press, Inc., 1993.
Zora Neale Hurston’s writing embodies the modernism themes of alienation and the reaffirmation of racial and social identity. She has a subjective style of writing in which comes from the inside of the character’s mind and heart, rather than from an external point of view. Hurston addresses the themes of race relations, discrimination, and racial and social identity. At a time when it is not considered beneficial to be “colored,” Hurston steps out of the norm and embraces her racial identity.
Authors get their ideas on paper in many ways. They can use their imagination making up everything from thin air. They can use their past experiences or experiences that others relate to them. A better explanation about how authors end up writing what we read is best clarified by an author themselves. Ursula Le Guin an American novelist explains, “I don't believe that a writer "gets" (takes into the head) an "idea" (some sort of mental object) "from" somewhere, and then turns it into words, and writes them on paper. The stuff has to be transformed into oneself, it has to be composted, before it can grow into a story.” If that is too complicated to understand we have the help of Robertson Davis a Canadian novelist who says, “I don't get them (ideas) they get me.” We may not ever know completely as readers how stories are created, but we can see that daily life influences everyone. This is no different for authors. What authors encounter in their daily life can easily influence what they write about. After reading some stories by Zora Neale Hurston, one can see how much the era she lived in had an effect in her writing. Her short stories “The Glided-Six Bits" and “Sweat” portray signs of The Great Depression and poverty life that was present during Hurston’s time.