Roles In Jonah's Gourd Vine By Zora Neale Hurston

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

Zora Neale Hurston, known as one of the most symbolic African American women during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1930’s. Hurston was known as a non fiction writer, anthropologist and folklorist. Hurston’s literature has served as a big eye opener during the Harlem Renaissance, celebrating black dialect and their traditions. Most of her published stories “depict relationships among black residents in her native southern Florida, was largely unconcerned with racial injustices” (Bomarito 89). Hurston was unique when it came to her racial point of views, promoting white racism instead of black racism. Even though her works had been forgotten by the time of her death, now her literature has left a bigger impact to future literature

Zora Neal Hurston was criticized by other African American writers for her use of dialect and folk speech. Richard Wright was one of her harshest critics and likened Hurston’s technique “to that of a minstrel show designed to appease a white audience” (www.pbs.org).Given the time frame, the Harlem Renaissance, it is understandable that Zora Neale Hurston may be criticized. The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement which redefined how America, and the world, viewed African Americans, so her folk speech could be seen as perpetuating main stream society’s view of African Americans as ignorant and incapable of speaking in complete sentences. However, others, such as philosopher and critic Alain Locke, praised her. He considered Hurston’s “gift for poetic phrase and rare dialect, a welcome replacement for so much faulty local color fiction about Negroes” (www.pbs.org).

Slavery was abolished after the Civil War, but the Negro race still was not accepted as equals into American society. To attain a better understanding of the events and struggles faced during this period, one must take a look at its' literature. James Weldon Johnson does an excellent job of vividly depicting an accurate portrait of the adversities faced before the Civil Rights Movement by the black community in his novel “The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man.” One does not only read this book, but instead one takes a journey alongside a burdened mulatto man as he struggles to claim one race as his own.

She uses idealistic examples and real world situations to get the best realistic interpretation on the matter of the harlem renaissance. This novel also is a great way to learn and understand the importance of women's roles and rights during the harlem renaissance era for the black/african american women. All in all, Hurston’s depiction of the harlem renaissance reflects and departs the major topics and does so

Purpose- Hurston’s purpose is to demonstrate that she is proud of her color. She does not need the bragging rights of having Native American ancestry, nor does she ‘belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it.’

Hurston, on the other hand, lived in a town where only blacks lived until she was thirteen years old. Therefore, she only knew the “black” self. There was no second identity to contend with. She states that “white people differed from colored to me only in that they rode through town and never lived there.”2 She does not feel anger when she is discriminated against. She only wonders how anyone can not want to be in her company. She “has no separate feeling about being an American citizen and colored” (Hurston 1712).

Society has always thought of racism as a war given to the lowly African American from the supposedly high class white man, but no one thought there would be prejudice within a hierarchical class system inside the black community. However within that class system, history has shown that darker colored women are at the deep trenches of the totem pole. In the novel, “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” African American women are put under harm and control exposing the racism and sexism with their community. Through the life of Janie Crawford, Zora Neale Hurston portrays the concept of a woman finding her independence in a black, hierarchical, and racist society.

The Harlem Renaissance was a time of revival and awakening in which the African American community produced a new form of cultural identity. After years of oppression and slavery, African Americans struggled to discover their own distinctive culture. It was through the literature and artistry of the Harlem Renaissance that the African American community began to express the suffering and resentment they truly experienced. In addition, the movement allowed them to find a way to escape their hardships. James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” and Langston Hughes’ “The Weary Blues” address the addiction, poverty, and violence that surrounded African Americans and the triumph of life that was captured in their attempt to escape the suffering.

The memoir “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston, was first published in 1928, and recounts the situation of racial discrimination and prejudice at the time in the United States. The author was born into an all-black community, but was later sent to a boarding school in Jacksonville, where she experienced “race” for the first time. Hurston not only informs the reader how she managed to stay true to herself and her race, but also inspires the reader to abandon any form of racism in their life. Especially by including Humor, Imagery, and Metaphors, the author makes her message very clear: Everyone is equal.

In a modern society, race is no longer the determining factor of one’s place in the social hierarchy. Instead, the wealth and fame a person possesses captivates the world’s attention. However, race is still a controversial topic in the United States. Thus racial tensions continue to exist in certain sections of the country. The literal and metaphoric foundation of this currently powerhouse of a nation is built on slavery, the backs of immigrants and people of color who received little to no recognition for their efforts and contributions. The barbarous treatment of African slaves, especially in the South with its large cotton plantations further embedded hatred and hostility between colored people and white people. It took over a decade and a Civil War between the North and the South before the slavery was abolished. However, slavery was merely replaced by Jim Crow laws and segregations that continued to divide the colored from the white. Finally, the Civil Rights movement urged citizens to evolve from racist views. Yet even still racism plays a big part in our culture and is still heavily discussed; our current political climate only fuels the discussion. In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, both racism and colorism are touched on both a symbolical level as well as a literal one through the trials and tribulations of the protagonist, Janie. Despite not having a theme centered around racial issues in the novel, Hurston highlights them throughout the

Although Zora Neale Hurston and Jamaica Kincaid lived in different times, thematically their writing had similar themes. If they had been contemporaries, they most certainly would have discussed their common experiences as black women who faced financial challenges and the racial divide that they experienced in their daily lives. Without a doubt, their writing was personally cathartic. Although in Kincaid’s writing, she addresses her issues with her mother head on, I have no doubt that Hurston’s stories were also influenced by her early family life.

Both Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes were great writers but their attitudes towards their personal experience as an African American differed in many ways. These differences can be attributed to various reasons that range from gender to life experience but even though they had different perceptions regarding the African American experience, they both shared one common goal, racial equality through art. To accurately delve into the minds of the writers’ one must first consider authors background such as their childhood experience, education, as well their early adulthood to truly understand how it affected their writing in terms the similarities and

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement in the 1920s that led to the evolution of African-American culture, expression through art, music, and literary works, and the establishment of African roots in America. Zora Neale Hurston contributed to the Harlem Renaissance with her original and enticing stories. However, Hurston’s works are notorious (specifically How it Feels to Be Colored Me and Their Eyes Were Watching God) because they illustrate the author’s view of black women and demonstrate the differences between their views and from earlier literary works.

In the short story “Drenched in Light” by Zora Neale Hurston, the author appeals to a broad audience by disguising ethnology and an underlying theme of gender, race, and oppression with an ambiguous tale of a young black girl and the appreciation she receives from white people. Often writing to a double audience, Hurston had a keen ability to appeal to white and black readers in a clever way. “[Hurston] knew her white folks well and performed her minstrel shows tongue in cheek” (Meisenhelder 2). Originally published in The Opportunity in 1924, “Drenched in Light” was Hurston’s first story to a national audience.