Zora Neale Hurston Research Paper

Zora Neale Hurston was born in Notasulga, Alabama on January 7, 1891. Her father, John Hurston, was a minister and he had several years as a mayor for that town. Her mother, Lucy Hurston, seemed to only have her family as any worries. Her childhood seemed to be perfect, it was free from racism and poverty (Zora 1). Although, everything changed when her mother passed away and his father remarried and soon was sent to boarding school. She was then expelled a while after her father stopped paying for tuition so she worked in a theatrical company as a maid (Zora 1). Quitting that job, at

Zora Neale Hurston was born in 1901. She was raised in Eatonville, Florida. Hurston went to Howard University and progressed on to Barnard College. Hurston’s work reflected the use of African American legends in her short stories. Hurston was a vital figure who composed stories and played during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and 1930s. She was committed to telling the stories of many cultures to allocate their social legacy with deference and love with an end goal to beat the unrefined stereotyping of her period. In 1925 during the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston wrote a story called “Spunk”. In the story “Spunk”, Hurston used the literary terms like character, setting, and conflict that catches the reader’s attention and made

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

The constant relocation prompted Zora to go to work. Most of the jobs Hurston landed as maids and waitresses didn’t last long, due to her independent attitude. Hurston spent the next five years wandering from one job to another, living from hand to mouth, never able to afford new clothes or, even worse, books. Hurston, finally found a break when she became a wardrobe girl in the Gilbert and Sullivan theatrical troop. For eighteen months, she traveled with them feeling like a part of their family. With the assistance of one of the actresses, Zora entered Morgan Academy in Baltimore, MD (The high school division of what is now Morgan State University) in the fall of 1917(Howard 5).

Zora Hurston has become a well known author because of the stories that she has written. Her stories are well known, like the “Opportunity”, because they are,

Zora Neale Hurston was born and raised in Eatonville, Florida which was the first all-black town in the United States to be incorporated and self-governed. Due to Hurston growing up in an all-black community, she was protected from racism. She states that the only white people she knew were the ones passing through the town going to or coming from Orlando. When she moved from the town of Eatonville to Jacksonville, she was introduced to a different lifestyle where she was

Harriet Beecher Stowe was born on June 14, 1811 in a town in Connecticut called Litchfield. Her parents were Reverend Lyman Beecher and Roxanna Foote Beecher, who wanted their children to influence the world in some way. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s family based their philosophies on social justice. Some of the Beecher’s children were ministers, teachers in education for women, the youngest daughter was founder of the National Women’s Suffrage Association, and Harriet was the writer of the family (Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Life). Stowe was part of eleven siblings born to her parents. Harriet Beecher Stowe later died on June 1, 1896 in her own home in Hartford, Connecticut (biography.com).

“But for the national welfare, it is urgent to realize that the minorities do think, and think about something other than the race problem”(Zora Neale Hurston). Hurston is arguing that there are more issues than black or white. There is also sexism, classism and there is more than one inequity. Minorities need to look at the problem as a whole and address more than just the race problem. (transition) A diseased language model uses words to oppress others, and are born out of fear. A model is diseased because it will deliver sickness and death. Cixous identified language models and said that they are the bane of our existence. She said they were introduced to us young and limited us from moving fluidly through our lives. By using these types

At the age of three John Hurston moved the family to Eatonville, where he would become mayor of the small town of 125. Eatonville was like no other town in the United States during the last years of the Nineteenth century (Hemenway). In 1863, Eatonville was one of the first all black towns to be chartered after the emancipation proclamation and in 1887 was the first of these towns to be incorporated. Her childhood here shaped her ideas and reality and, as would later be seen in her writing, would shape her views on race. The wonderful life in utopian Eatonville was lost after the death of her mother in 1904, which led the young Zora Neale Hurston away from the halls of academics and into domestics. Her father quickly remarried a woman that Hurston did not like and had left the household at age 14, first caring after her brother's children and later as a domestic servant in Baltimore. It was here in Baltimore where Hurston reentered academia, enrolling in the Morgan Academy, a High School operated by what is now Morgan State University. Upon graduation, Hurston enrolled at Howard University in Washington where Hurston's life would forever be changed. It was at Howard University in 1918 where she met a young Alain Locke who further inspired her strong pride in black heritage and also inspired her to pursue a literary career.

Zora Neale Hurston was born on January 7, 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama. She is the fifth of eight children born to two former slaves. Her father’s name is John Hurston and her mother’s name is Lucy Ann (Potts) Hurston. Her father, a pastor, moved them to Florida when her mother died; she was very young at the time. Zora has no memories of Notasulga, having moved to Florida as a toddler. Shortly after that her father remarried; however Zora lived with an assortment of family members for the next few years.

With the assistance of college professors Georgia Douglas Johnson and Alain Locke, Zora began to write short stories. These stories brought her to the attention of Charles Spurgeon Johnson, the sociologist and shaker and mover of the Harlem Renaissance. He invited Hurston to New York to try her fortune as a writer. Zora wasn't in New York long before she was met eminent black writers and sophisticated white writers, who invited her to dinner parties and nightclubs. It was at the Opportunity dinner party where Hurston met Annie Nathan Meyer who saw a brilliant mind beneath Zora's flashy exterior (Howard 4).

Zora Neale Hurston was an African-American folklorist, novelist and anthropologist. She was born in 1891 and lived in the first all-black town in the United States, Eatonville, Florida. Her 1937 novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God and played a vital role in the literacy movement the Harlem Renaissance is what she is best known for. Zora Neale Hurston depicts racism in her writings and has contributed greatly to African-American literature. Her work became more popular posthumously.

Zora Neale Hurston is a world wide known twentieth-century African-American novelist, known for creating several works of fiction, including the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Coming from a family of eight children, Hurston often writes about her childhood and racial struggles growing up. Dust Tracks on a Road: An Autobiography, written by Zora Neale Hurston, describes her childhood life of poverty in the rural south. The audience is able to better understand what the author's childhood was like because of the word choices she uses, and the details given through multiple perspectives. Zora Neale Hurston enriches our sense of her childhood world through diction, manipulation of point of view, tone, imagery, details, and syntax.

Zora Neale Hurston, the main character Janie Starks, is coming back from the Everglades where her and her husband Tea Cakes were. Janie is around forty years old but when she is telling Phoeby Watson about what had happened to her she is about sixteen years old. Janie has dark and long brown hair and she looks much younger than she is. Janie has never met her parents and she has lived with her grandmother for most of her life. Janie is unlike other women of this time, she is living on her own and makes her own decisions for herself. She does not need to be married and is perfectly fine walking around in overalls rather than the typical style of wearing dresses and looking perfect all the time.

Through images of Janie’s face and her clenched teeth, Hurston displays the will to fight slowly disappearing after one has been pushed for a long time in order to express the effect of oppression on a person. The internal fight of submission that occurs within Janie and the choice of whether or not to voice her opinion causes her to question Joe and what was really between them. Following years of conflict within herself and with her husband, Joe, Janie surrenders the fight to finding her voice. “So gradually, she pressed her teeth together and learned to hush”(71). The use of the word “gradually” in the citation reveals that becoming silent for Joe’s sake was a slow process for Janie. Since Joe was able to back Janie into this corner and