Zora Neale Hurston grew up in poverty, lived her life in infamy, and died in obscurity. Her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God dropped off the face of the Earth because of negative and damaging criticism from Richard Wright and Alain Locke, and the fact that she was a black woman in a discriminating culture. It then resurfaced 30 years later due to fans and the movements of the civil rights, woman’s rights, and Black Arts.
Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God is greatly praised by most critics today but was held in a different light when first published. Popular black authors during Hurston’s era held the most disdain for Hurston’s novel. Famous writer Richard Wright harshly criticized the book as a “minstrel technique that makes the ‘white folks’ laugh. Her characters eat and laugh and cry and work and kill; they swing like a pendulum eternally in that safe and narrow orbit in which America likes to see the Negro live: between laughter and tears” (Wright, Between Laughter and Tears). Wright dominated the 40’s decade of writing for blacks (Washington, Foreword). His review explains Hurston book is feeding the whites additional reasons why black are the “lower” race. This was the complete opposite idea of what blacks strived to be seen as and as such Hurston’s novel would be unread by the black culture. This made Wright’s review the most crippling towards Hurston because it was intensely harsh and his influence greatly urge the readers to dismiss Their Eyes Were Watching God leading to its disappearance.
Wright’s review was just one of the critics that destroyed the reputation of Hurston’s novel. Other African-American authors, such as Alain Locke, gave mutilating reviews similar to Wright’s...
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This excerpt from Zora Neale Hurston’s book, Their Eyes Were watching God, is an example of her amazing writing. She makes us feel as if we are actually in her book, through her use of the Southern Black vernacular and admirable description. Her characters are realistic and she places special, well thought out sentences to keep us interested. Zora Neale Hurston’s art enables her to write this engaging story about a Southern black woman’s life.
Within her article, A Society of One: Zora Neale Hurston, American Contrarian, Claudia R. Pierpont, a writer and journalist for The New Yorker, tells, analyzes, and gives foundation to Zora Neale Hurston’s backstory and works. Throughout her piece, as she gives her biography of Hurston, she deeply analyzes the significance of Richard Wright, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, as he accuses Hurston of “cynically perpetuating a minstrel tradition meant to make white audiences laugh”(Pierpont 3). By doing so, Wright challenges Hurston’s authority to speak for the “black race” as he claims that her works do not take a stance, rather she only writes to please the “white audience. ”As his critiques show to be oppressive, Pierpont reminds the reader the
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. Harper Perennial Modern Classics: Reissue Edition 2013
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1990.
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...
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Zora Neale Hurston an early twentieth century Afro-American feminist author, was raised in a predominately black community which gave her an unique perspective on race relations, evident in her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston drew on her on experiences as a feminist Afro-American female to create a story about the magical transformation of Janie, from a young unconfident girl to a thriving woman. Janie experiences many things that make her a compelling character who takes readers along as her companion, on her voyage to discover the mysteries and rewards life has to offer.
This paper examines the drastic differences in literary themes and styles of Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston, two African--American writers from the early 1900's. The portrayals of African-American women by each author are contrasted based on specific examples from their two most prominent novels, Native Son by Wright, and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Hurston. With the intent to explain this divergence, the autobiographies of both authors (Black Boy and Dust Tracks on a Road) are also analyzed. Particular examples from the lives of each author are cited to demonstrate the contrasting lifestyles and experiences that created these disparities, drawing parallels between the authors’ lives and creative endeavors. It becomes apparent that Wright's traumatic experiences involving females and Hurston's identity as a strong, independent and successful Black artist contributed significantly to the ways in which they chose to depict African-American women and what goals they adhered to in reaching and touching a specific audience with the messages contained in their writing.
It is strange that two of the most prominent artists of the Harlem Renaissance could ever disagree as much as or be as different as Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright. Despite the fact that they are the same color and lived during the same time period, they do not have much else in common. On the one hand is Hurston, a female writer who indulges in black art and culture and creates subtle messages throughout her most famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. On the other hand is Wright, who is a male writer who demonstrates that whites do not like black people, nor will they ever except for when they are in the condition “…America likes to see the Negro live: between laughter and tears.” Hurston was also a less political writer than Wright. When she did write politically, she was very subtle about stating her beliefs.
Racine, Maria J. "African American Review." Voice and Interiority in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God 28.2 (1994): 283-92. Jstor. Black's Women Culture Issue, Summer 1994. Web. Dec. 2013.
Seidel, Kathryn L. “The Artist in the Kitchen: The Economics of Creativity in Hurston’s Sweat.”
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.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: J.B. Lippincott, Inc. 1937. Print.
According to Mary Helen Washington, there are three notable types of recurring female characters in African American women´s writing (Tyson, 390), which can be used to analyse the female characters in Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.