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Hurston

Zora Neale. Picture for US Postal Stamp, 2003. Hurston. Early Life. 1891 – 1960 I “grew like a gourd and yelled bass like a gator.” Notasulga, Alabama Eatonville, Florida Father: carpenter, preacher, mayor Mother: died 1904 “jump at the sun.”. Out in the World.

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Hurston

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  1. Zora Neale Picture for US Postal Stamp, 2003 Hurston

  2. Early Life • 1891 – 1960 • I “grew like a gourd and yelled bass like a gator.” • Notasulga, Alabama • Eatonville, Florida • Father: carpenter, preacher, mayor • Mother: died 1904 “jump at the sun.”

  3. Out in the World • At 13: taken out of school • At 16: traveling theater company

  4. Education and Career • Howard University (1920) • Harlem Renaissance • 1927: founded Fire! • Barnard College • Columbia University • Anthropology and Folklore • Teacher, librarian, and domestic

  5. Work for Benefactor • Mrs. R. Osgood Mason of Park Ave. New York • Monthly allowance for 5 years to collect folklore of the South • Criticized for flattering letters

  6. Other Works • Jonah’s Gourd Vine, 1934 [1991] • Mules and Men, 1935 • Their Eyes Were Watching God 1937 • Tell My Horse, 1938 • Moses, Man of the Mountain, 1939 • Dust Tracks on a Road, 1942 • Seraph on the Suwanee, 1948

  7. Early Critical Reception of Their Eyes Were Watching God • Sterling Brown: It does not “depict the harsher side of black life in the South” • Richard Wright: It “carries no theme, no message, no thought,” but is like a minstrel show. • Benjamin Brawley: “Her interest . . . Is not in solving problems, the chief concern being with individuals.” Richard Wright

  8. Affirmative View of African American Culture • But I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow damned up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are hurt about it. . . . No, I do not weep at the world—I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife. --“How It Feels to Be Colored Me” • Politically conservative in 1950s. • Opposed 1954 Supreme Court desegregation decision

  9. Last Years • Arrested in 1948 • Solitary retirement in Florida • Died in a welfare home • Buried in an unmarked grave • A Genius of the South: 1901 [sic]---1960. Novelist, Folklorist, Anthropologist

  10. Current Critical Issues • Alice Walker: “There is no book more important to me.” • Female bonding  self-definition • Questions about “voice” • Role of folklore: magic of 3’s, tale of courtly love, symbols that aid in retelling

  11. Bibliography Crabtree, Claire. “The Confluence of Folklore, Feminism and Black Self-Determination in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.” The Southern Literary Journal, 17:2 (54-66) Jordan, Jennifer. “Feminist Fantasies: Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Tulsa Studies in Women&apos’s Literature. 7:1 (105-17). Saunders, James Robert. “Womanism as the Key to Understanding Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple.” The Hollins Critic. 25:4 (1-11). Washington, Mary Helen. Foreword. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. New York: Perennial Classics, 1998. ----------. Introduction. I Love Myself When I Am Laughing. Alice Walker, Ed. New York: The Feminist Press, 1979. Zora Neale Hurston. Biography. Contemporary Literary Criticism. Literature Resource Center, January 2003. <http://www.galenet.com> Images: http://www.americanplacetheatre.org/stage/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=47&Itemid=57 http://www.loc.gov/wiseguide/jan04/zora.html http://www.nndb.com/people/237/000084982/ http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Grand-Jean/Hurston/Chapters/patron.html

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