Neale Hurston Essay, Research Paper

& # 8220 ; I am Me, My Eyes Toward God & # 8221 ; Zora Neale Hurston an early 20th century African-american women’s rightist writer, was raised in a predominately black community which gave her an alone position on race dealingss, evident in her novel, Their Eyess Were Watching God. Hurston drew on her on experiences as a feminist African-american female to make a narrative about the charming transmutation of Janie, from a immature unconfident miss to a booming adult female. Janie experiences many things that make her a compelling character who takes readers along as her comrade, on her ocean trip to detect the enigmas and wagess life has to offer. Zora Neale Hurston was, the girl of a Baptist curate and an educated bookman who still believed in the mastermind contained within the common southern black slang ( Hook hypertext transfer protocol: //splavc.spjc.cc.fl.us/hooks/Zora.html ) . She was a adult female who found her topographic point, 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 particular thing in this town, where she said, & # 8220 ; ? [ I ] grew like a like a calabash and shouted bass like a gator, & # 8221 ; ( Gale, 1 ) . When Hurston was 13 she was removed from school and sent to care for her brother & # 8217 ; s kids. She became a member of a going theatre at the age of 16, and so found herself working as a amah for a white adult female. This adult female saw a flicker that was waiting for fuel, so she arranged for Hurston to go to high school in Baltimore. She besides attended Morgan Academy, now called Morgan State University, from which she graduated in June of 1918. She so enrolled in the Howard Prep School followed by ulterior registration in Howard University. In 1928 Hurston attended Barnard College where she studied anthropology under Franz Boas. After she graduated, Zora returned to Eatonville to get down work on anthropology. Four old ages after Hurston received her B.A. from Barnard she enrolled in Columbia University to get down alumnus work ( Detecting Writers, 2-4 ) . Hurston & # 8217 ; s life seemed to be traveling good but she was shortly to see the other side of reality.Hurston ne’er stayed at a occupation for excessively long, invariably declining the progresss of male employers, which showed portion of her strong feminist temperament. But Hurston was still seeking true love throughout her travels and instruction. At Howard University, Hurston met Herburt Sheen whom she married on May 19, 1927 in St. Augstine, Florida ( DA, 2 ) . They divorced shortly after they got married because they could non go on the idealistic dreams they had shared in their young person. Zora Hurston & # 8217 ; s 2nd matrimony to Albert Price III was besides short lived. They were married in 1939 and divorced in 1943 ( DA, 2 ) . By the mid-1940s Hurston & # 8217 ; s composing calling had began to waver. While populating in New York, Hurston was arrested and charged with perpetrating an immoral act with a ten-year-old male child. The charges were subsequently dropped when Hurston proved that she was in another state at the clip the incident allegedly took topographic point ( Detecting Writers, 3 ) . Hurston already was witnessing the rejection of all of her plants submitted to her publishing house, but the combined effects of the apprehension and the resulting journalistic onslaught on her image doomed the bulk of her literary calling. She wrote to a friend: & # 8220 ; I care nil for composing anything any more? My race has seen tantrum to destruct me without ground, and with the vilest tools conceived by adult male so far & # 8221 ; ( Detecting Writers, 4 ) . In about 1950 Hurston returned to Florida, where she worked as a cleaning adult female in Rivo Alto. She subsequently moved to Belle Glade, Florida, in hopes of resuscitating her composing calling. She failed and worked as many occupations including: newspaper journalist, librarian, and replacement instructor ( Baker, hypertext transfer protocol: //www.prodigy.com/ pages.html/chronology.htm ) . Hurston suffered a shot in 1959 which demanded her entree in the Saint Lucie County Florida Welfare Home. She died a broken, penniless, invalid in January 1960 ( DA, 5 ) .All of Hurston & # 8217 ; s tests built the footing for her best work. Therefore, the work that has denoted her as one of the 20th century & # 8217 ; s most influential writers did non come until after she had graduated from college. However, the literature she composed in college was by no agencies inferior. She was a noncompliant free-spirit even during her early college calling. While working on an anthropological survey for her wise man, Franz Boas, she was exposed to voo doo, which she rapidly embraced. She was profoundly interested in the elusive niceties that voo doo had left scattered throughout African-american civilization. She besides adopted this faith, which contrasted wholly with her Baptist up-bringing, because it gave her a new artistic sense. Voo doo freed her from the institutional restraints that she experienced as a black adult female in a white oligarchy ( Hinton, 4 ) . Her belief in voo doo appeared in about all of her plants, including Their Eyess Are Watching God, where Zora & # 8217 ; s fabricated Eatonville seems to be controlled by supernatural forces ( Hinton, 5 ) . Hurston used her artistic endowment to integrate her cultural anthologies into her fiction by uniting many of the traditions and cultural touchs she discovered while following Black civilization into the fictional town of Eatonville ( Hemenway, 13 ) .Hurston & # 8217 ; s most acclaimed work, Their Eyess Were Watching God, has been read, adored, rejected, reviewed, and badgered by many literary critics and uneducated readers likewise. & # 8220 ; In a book rich with imagination and black unwritten tradition, Zora Neale Hurston tells us of a adult female & # 8217 ; s journey that gives the prevarication to Freud & # 8217 ; s averment that & # 8216 ; the hard development which leads to muliebrity seems to wash up all the possibilities of the single & # 8217 ; & # 8221 ; ( Reich, 163 ) . This statement is manifested in Their Eyes? through Hurston & # 8217 ; s graphic imagination and eldritch sense of her ain demands. The secret plan centres around Janie, a character some critics say is mimicked after Hurston herself, and her journey toward self-discovery. As a victim of circumstance, Janie becomes a victim of her ain place. She is raised to continue the criterions of her grandma & # 8217 ; s coevals ; she is taught to be inactive and capable to whatever life gives her. But as Janie grows older she begins to recognize that the universe may non wish it, but she has got to follow her desires, non stamp down them. The narrative begins in her childhood, with Janie lauding stuff ownerships and money, two things she has ne’er had an copiousness of. Janie marries twice, the 2nd matrimony being bigamous. She realizes that she must be autonomous. She experiences all of these things in a wholly Black community, where society is motivated by the most basic human instincts.Hurston in-bedded her ain life experiences into Their Eyes? with her cagey incorporation of outstanding subjects in society. While avoiding societal bias, Zora seamlessly integrates her ain racial-discovery into her novel. The reader does non experience that she is projecting societal biass or personal onslaughts ; but instead imparts a stamp, soft disclosure to Janie that she is Black. Janie is raised with white kids in the place of the household her Grandmother plant for. She grows up playing, laughing, and basking the things that the white kids do, so much so, that she is included in a household portrayal. When she goes to look at the image, she doesn & # 8217 ; t see herself- but instead a dark miss with long hair. & # 8220 ; Where is me? Ah Don & # 8217 ; t see me, & # 8221 ; she complains ( Their Eyess Were Watching God, 6 ) . She had non realized boulder clay that minute, she was non white.To farther the story-line, Hurston takes Janie on a journey of self-discovery with a somewhat feminist turn. Throughout the fresh Janie is confronted with the compelling desire by others to do her a & # 8220 ; proper & # 8221 ; adult female. She is taught to be submissive. She is taught to hold no sentiment and no enterprise. However, she learns over clip, she has the turning feeling that something is losing, perchance her deficiency of assurance. She shortly becomes her ain individual, projecting her given batch aside, and seeking a new one on her ain way, detecting her dreams and her identify. In this novel, Hurston expresses many of her sentiments on race dealingss. She is frequently criticized for her deficiency of confrontational forces in Their Eyes & # 8230 ; , nevertheless she explained that she has clearly defined her place on race dealingss in her books. She has done it in a manner that no group can really anchor a claim that her work is catered to any one audience. Many Black critics at the clip of publication criticized Their Eyes & # 8230 ; for its deficiency of racial consciousness, while White critics, such as Otis Ferguson, claimed that the book is & # 8220 ; .. perfectly free of Uncle Toms & # 8230 ; & # 8221 ; ( DA, 2 ) . Most modern-day critics feel Hurston & # 8217 ; s novel is the apogee of all of Black civilization. Hurston was frequently criticized for her Hagiographas. She was speedy to answer: I am non tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my psyche, nor skulking behind my eyes. I do non mind at all. I do non belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty trade and tungsten

hose feeling are all hurt about it…. No, I do not weep at the world- I am to busy sharpening my oyster knife (Discovering Authors, 4).Hurston showed her true opinions on race relations in her autobiography Dust Tracks on the Road when she declared black artists should celebrate the positive aspects of black American Negrohood. And that is exactly what Hurston did through her innovative characters in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Janie is raised by her grandmother. Grandmother sets Janie up for her journey of self-discovery. Janie’s grandmother set her goal for Janie’s life by saying, “Ah wanted you to look upon yo’ self. Ah don’t want yo’ feathers always crumpled by folks throwin’ up things in yo’ face” (Hurston, 14). Her grandmother has a desire to see Janie in a ’safe’ place, or in other words, a place where she will never have to want for anything. Janie loved her grandmother and wanted to please her even though she was not sure she agreed with all of the plans her grandmother had made. “Janie had been angry at her grandmother for having ‘taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon… and pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her grandmother’s neck tight enough to choke her’” (Reich, 4). Her grandmother accomplishes this by arranging for Janie to marry Logan Killicks. Logan Killicks is a farmer who marries Janie shortly after she completes school. Killicks is the first antagonist that Janie encounters in the story. He is there for one purpose, to destroy Janie’s new sense of self-awareness. Janie does not love Logan nor does he love her. Janie is constantly looking for another horizon. She soon finds that horizon in Joe Starks.Joe appears in Janie’s front yard one day. He says the ’sweet’ things that Janie wants to her. Janie leaves Logan the next day, and therefor takes another step in her journey. Joe is a man who is concerned with little except power. He wants it, and he is going to use Janie to get it. He is cruel to Janie, and stomps out all of her free will. He builds his town of Eatonville as the newly elected mayor, crushing all in his path, making many enemies, including Janie, along the way.Teacake could be Janie’s knight in shining armor. He comes to her aid. He wants her to do the things she desires. “Sing, dance, have fun with me,” seems to be what Teacake is offering her-a new direction. Teacake is a good ol’ boy. He takes Janie to the Everglades. He lets her tell stories. However, she becomes what she set out to, only when she leaves Teacake. When she leaves Teacake Janie returns to Eatonville and the book ends where it began, as Janie finishes or dialogue with her friend Pheoby. When she walks back in to town, no longer ‘Ms. Mayor,’ as Joe was fond of calling her, Janie is truly her own person. She is proud and sure of her self and her place under the sun. There are so many literary and social implications contained within Their Eyes Were Watching God, that many criticisms have been written on particular aspects of Hurston’s work. One of the best criticisms, though not nationally published, demonstrates some of the true experiences that Hurston incorporated into her work. Hurston conjures powerful images by giving voice to all her disparate elements while simultaneously respecting the autonomy of each. She conjures images from the kitchen, from the rural landscape of Florida, and from the elemental forces of nature. and tempers her conjuring with the objectivity of the scholar while freely adorning it with the poetic beauty of black vernacular (Conjured into Being, 1).The unknown author of this passage gave an elegant style to the point that Hurston used strong sensory and oratory descriptions to make her text come alive. She tried to pull from all the areas of her personality to develop something on paper, the way she experienced it in life. She showed her philosophy on how a person should live their and get the most out of it. In her autobiography she wrote: I had stifled longing. I used to climb to the top of one of the huge chinaberry trees which guarded our front gate, and look out over the world. The most interesting thing that I saw was the horizon… It grew upon me that I ought to walk out to the horizon and see what the end of the world was like. (Dust Tracks on the Road, 36), (Conjured into Being, 1). Like Hurston, Janie longs for the horizon. She finds that she must struggle to overcome the many obstacles society throws in her path.Hurston’s frequent use of emotional metaphors is part of the power contained in her fiction. She uses nature to convey her emotions. The sun is a major image in the texts of Hurston, and the passage above illustrates her fascination with light. Ever since her mother told her to ‘jump at de sun’ when she was a young girl, Hurston self-confidently refused any feelings of victimization She like her character Janie, was not ‘tragically colored.’ In her early short story, “Drenched in Light,” a wealthy white woman comments on Isis, the happy child of Hurston’s your: ‘I would like just a little of her sunshine to soak into my soul{spunk, 18}’(Conjured into Being, 4).”This is one of many examples of Hurston’s emphasis on emotional identification in her fiction. She also believed strongly in the elements of the earth and how they showed a symbol for each emotion. “The elements of sun and fire cleanse and renew her. The wind, another elemental image, is first heard ‘picking at the pine trees.’ Pine trees, which Janie associates with young black men, like TeaCake, who are often seen ‘picking’ guitars” (Conjured into Being, 16).The wind is commonly associated with love, the soul, and femininity. She expresses her feminist philosophy with the description of women not as weak creatures needing to be cared for, but as strong capable peers.Bryan D. Bourn, with help of Dr. Laura Zlogar of the Wisconsin-River Falls University discusses the role of Afro-American women in Their Eyes Were Watching God. He explores the role of African-American women in early 1900’s society by examining Hurston’s writing. Historically, the job of women in society is to care for the husband, the home, and the children. As a homemaker, it has been up to the woman to support the husband and care for the house; as a mother, the role was to care for the children and pass along cultural traditions and values to the children. These roles are no different in the African-American community, except for the fact that they are magnified to even larger proportions. The image of the mother in African-American culture is on of guidance, love, and wisdom… Understanding the role of women in the African-American community starts by examining the roles… in Afro-American literature. (Bourn, 1).Bourn goes on to state that the role of the mother-daughter relationship is expressed vividly in Their Eyes… by the relationship that develops between Janie and her Grandmother. “The strong relationship between mother and child is important… the conflict between Janie’s idyllic view of marriage and her [grandmother’s] wish for her to marry into stability… show how deep the respect and trust runs” (Bourn, 1). This excerpt tries to show the way that Janie, by marrying Logan, does what her grandmother wants out of respect. This is just one of the idealistic ways that Hurston expresses her opinions on society and life, not to exclude racial situations.”Does Hurston ‘owe’ her race anything” (Hinton, 2)? As previously discussed, many of Hurston’s contemporaries criticized her lack of racial issues in her work. A good question to ask is “does Hurston’s fiction further racial equality?” (Hinton). Kip Hinton discusses Hurston’s approach to race relations in comparision to the common school of thought during her time. Alain Locke crticized Hurston for avoiding racial confrontations (Hinton, 2). All of Hurston’s critics said that she gave in to the stereotype of a typical African-American. This in turn furthered the sense of inequality present in society. The critics who held this view, according to Hinton, subscribed this style of confrontation: “They believed only by preaching to the white reader about how wonderful blacks really were and how horrible discrimination was, could equality be achieved” (Hinton, 2). This argument is really a feeble one. Hinton claims that this argument lacks reason because “telling a racist he’s a racist won’t make him change” (Hinton, 2). If the reader can not read Hurston’s work and see that she cared deeply about equality, dealing with it in her special way, then they will never change. The most important thing to keep in mind when you think of Zora Neale Hurston is that she was a literary genius. She may have been a woman, and an African-American, that is why someone wrote, “Zora would have been Zora even if she’d been an Eskimo” (Hinton, 3). That is why she was so clear on her definition of race relations. She believed that equality was achieved by showing the oppressor the wonderful things in life, not constantly pointing out the bad. Hurston put it best when she cried out, “at certain times I have no race, I AM ME.”