Zora Neale Hurston 2 Essay, Research Paper

HER LIFE REFLECTED IN MAJOR WORKS:

ZORA NEALE HURSTON

Zora Neale Hurston, an early 20th century African-american women’s rightist writer, was raised in a predominately black community that gave her a alone position on race dealingss, apparent 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 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 ( Hurston 23 ) .

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. 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, & # 8221 ; I grew like a like a calabash and shouted bass like a gator, & # 8221 ; ( Gale, 46 ) . 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 ) . Hurston & # 8217 ; s life seemed to be traveling good but she was shortly to see the other side of world.

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 ( Rood 28 ) . 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 ( Rood 35 ) . 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 ) . 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 ) . 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 68 ) .

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. All of Hurston & # 8217 ; s tests built the footing for her best work. Therefore, the work that has made her as one of the 20th century & # 8217 ; s most influential writers did non come until after she had graduated from college. 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 jujus, which she rapidly embraced. She besides adopted this faith, which contrasted wholly with her Baptist up delivery, because it gave her a new artistic sense. Voodoo freed her from the institutional restraints that she experienced as a black adult female in a white oligarchy. Her belief in juju appeared in about all of her plants, including Their Eyess Were Watching God

( Gale 78 ) . 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. Hurston’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. “In a book rich with imagination and black unwritten tradition, Zora Neale Hurston tells us of a woman’s journey that gives the prevarication to Freud’s averment that ‘the hard development which leads to muliebrity seems to wash up all the possibilities of the individual” ( Baker 91 ) . The secret plan centres on 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 grandmother’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 inherent aptitudes. ( Baker 103 )

Hurston in-bedded her ain life experiences into Their Eyes Were Watching God 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 ( Hurston 64 ) . She had non realized boulder clay that minute, she was non white. To foster the narrative line, Hurston takes Janie on a journey of self-discovery with a somewhat feminist turn.

Janie shortly becomes her ain individual, projecting her given batch aside, and seeking 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 Eyess Were Watching God, 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 Eyess Were Watching God for its deficiency of racial consciousness ; while white critics, such as Otis Ferguson, claimed that the book is & # 8221 ; perfectly free of Uncle Toms & # 8221 ; ( Rood 52 ) . 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 whose feeling are all hurt about it & # 8230 ; . No, I do non cry at the world- I am to busy sharpening my oyster knife. Hurston showed her true sentiments on race dealingss in her autobiography Dust Tracks on the Road when she declared black creative persons should observe the positive facets of black American Negrohood. And that is precisely what Hurston did through her advanced characters in Their Eyess Were Watching God. ( Detecting Writers )

Zora Neale Hurston ne’er received any recognition for any of her plants because it was until after her unmarked grave was discovered that her verse forms and fresh truly came alive. At the clip of her Hagiographas Hurston had two big obstructions in her manner, the fact that she was black, and that she was a adult female. Hurston persevered and continued to fight on, and that was exactly why she promoted equality. Her power as an person was so overpowering ; she was in fact the Harlem Renaissance s most effectual onslaught on racism. Hurston put it best when she said, at certain times I have no race, I AM ME.