Zora Neale Hurston was best known for her novels and different collections of folklore. She was a writer who associated with the Harlem Renaissance that celebrated the African American culture of the south. Her first novel, “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, was a best-selling novel in 1937.
Zora Neal Lee Hurston was born on January 7, 1891 in Eatonville, Florida. She was the fifth of the eight children to Lucy Ann Potts and John Hurston (“Zora Hurston” 3). Her mother had died in 1904 when she was thirteen. She dropped out of school after her death. When young Zora had seen her older sister, Sara hurt and rejected, she having bad attitudes because of her new stepmother. A few years later, Zora got into a physical fight with her stepmother causing her father to be on his daughter’s side.
When young Zora’s school wasn’t paid well, she was put to work by scrubbing the floors and working in the kitchen. It was an only way for her to do in order for her to continue her education. While staying with her older brother, Bob, Zora had befriended with a white woman. She had like Zora as a friendly and sisterly way. When the white woman had heard about a job opening as a maid to a singer, she wanted Zora to apply for the job (Lutz 7). At the age of sixteen, she had decided to join the job in a traveling theatrical show when they ended up in New York during the Great Depression (“Zora Neale” 1).
In 1918, Hurston had spent two years at Morgan before she graduated. She did well on all of her classes, except for math. She continued to finish Morgan so she can get easily transfer from high school to college (Lutz 8). For the first time in her life after many years, Hurston didn’t have any financial problems. She had arrived in New York in 1925 ...
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...hat taught them survive racial oppression (Kaplan 5).
Hurston had a psychological motivation to present for the black culture. She had drawn the materials for her novels for the rural, and most of her southern black life she had known as a young child and recorded folklore by collecting trips during the late 1920s and 1930s (Kaplan 5).
Works Cited
“Hurston, Zora Neale.” World Book Online Info Finder. World Book, 2014. Web. 28 Apr. 2014
“Hurston, Zora Neale.” Britannica Biographies. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. 1994-2012 Web. 2
May 2014.
Zora Neale Hurston, Cambridge: American Women Playwrights, 1900-1950.
Kaplan, Deborah. Ed. “Zora Neale Hurston”. Critical Survey of Long Fiction, Fourth Edition. New York: Salem Press, 2010.
Lutz, Norma Jean eds. Harold Bloom. “Biography of Zora Neale Hurston. Bloom’s Biocritiques. New York: InfoBase Publishing, 2003.
Harris, Trudier. "Celebrating Bigamy and Other Outlaw Behaviors: Hurston, Reputation, and the Problems Inherent in Labeling Janie a Feminist." Approaches to Teaching Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Other Works. Ed. John Lowe. New York: MLA, 2009. 67-80. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 285. Detroit: Gale, 2013. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 14 Jan. 2014.
Hurston, Zora Neale. "Sweat." Norton Anthology of Southern Literature. Ed. William L. Andrews. New York: Norton, 1998.
Appiah, K.A. and Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. eds. Zora Neale Hurston: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. New York: Amistad Press, Inc., 1993.
Alice Walker’s love of Zora Neale Hurston is well known. She was the only one who went looking for Hurston’s grave. She describes her journey to get to the unmarked grave in her book, In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens. During that journey, Walker started to feel as if Hurston is family to her, an aunt. “By this time, I am, of course, completely into being Zora’s niece… Besides, as far as I’m concerned, she is my aunt – and that of all black people as well” (Ong). Walker’s book, The Color Purple, was influenced by Hurston and her works. Walker was greatly influenced by Hurston and her book The Color Purple has similarities to Hurston’s book Their Eyes Were Watching God.
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.
Wright, Richard. “Between Laughter and Tears.” In Zora Neale Hurston: Critical Perpectives Past and Present. Edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and K. A. Appiah., 16-17. New York: Amistad Press, Inc., 1993.
Narrator, this was a third person account, thus leaving much to the imagination. The conversation’s language was left as if truly taken from an African American speaker in the south in such a time. The way Hurston made the scenery appear before me was like a white sheet gets stained with red wine, unable to wash out of my mind. The narration was very brut in a grammatical manner, giving a wash bucket effect of never being settled.
Walker and Marshall write about an identity that they have found with African-American women of the past. They both refer to great writers such as Zora Neale Hurston or Phillis Wheatley. But more importantly, they connect themselves to their ancestors. The see that their writings can be identified with what the unknown African-American women of the past longed to say but they did not have the freedom to do so. They both admire many literary greats such as Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, and Jane Austen, but they appreciate these authors' works more than they can identify with them.
The early life of Zora Neale Hurston has been covered in mystery. While the majority of biographical accounts list the year of her birth as 1901, just as many list 1903, and in a 1993 biography film they list her birth day as 1891.
Zora Neale Hurston is undoubtedly a product of the Harlem Renaissance as well as one of its most extraordinary writers. Zora Neale Hurston was born in Nostasulga, Alabama on January 7th 1891, then moved to Eatonville, Florida which was the first black township to be incorporated in the United States. Zora’s childhood was far from perfect. Her mother died when she was only thirteen. Her father was infidel. She dropped out of school and was bouncing to relatives houses here and there. Zora clashed repeatedly with her new stepmom and eventually moved out. Regardless of the struggles and problems she faced during her life, she is still a prolific and creative writer. In her story “Sweat” one can see how bold she is. She has used the language of Ebonics, her experience, analogy, allusions, symbols, stereotypes, pathetic fallacy, introversion and poetic justice.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. Harper Perennial Modern Classics: Reissue Edition 2013
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
Zora Neale Hurston was born in Notasulga Alabama on, January 7, 1891. When she was a little girl her family moved to the now iconic town of Eatonville Florida. She was fifth child of eight of John Hurston and Lucy Ann Hurston. Eatonville was one of the first all-black towns to be established in the United States. Zora’s interest in literature was piqued when a couple of northern teachers, came to Eatonville and gave her books of folklore and fantasy. After her mother died, her father and new stepmother sent her to a boarding school. In 1918 Hurston began her undergraduate studies at Howard...
In “How It Feels to Be Colored Me,” Hurston breaks from the tradition of her time by rejecting the idea that the African American people should be ashamed or saddened by the color of their skin. She tells other African Americans that they should embrace their color and be proud of who they are. She writes, “[A socialite]…has nothing on me. The cosmic Zora emerges,” and “I am the eternal feminine with its string of beads” (942-943). Whether she feels “colored” or not, she knows she is beautiful and of value. But Hurston writes about a time when she did not always know that she was considered colored.