Zora Neale Hurston The New Negro Analysis

Zora Neale Hurston wrote the “Spunk” and published it in Harlem Renaissance journal in 1925. “Spunk” revolves around two main characters: Spunk Banks and Joe Kanty, who develop hatred between themselves due to a quarrel over a woman named Lena Kanty. Lena Kanty is Joe’s legitimate wife, later to be lured by Spunk Banks to abandon her legitimate husband. Spunk Banks successfully wins the love of Lena Kanty due to his heavy corporeal stature and military training. Spunk owns a .45 military hand gun, therefore, complicating attempts made by Kanty to fight for his wife. Kanty loses his life in the hands of Banks, when fighting for his wife and in the presence of his wife. Banks survives a court trial but a huge, black bob-cat in Joe’s ghost follows him afterwards in quest for vengeance for justice. Bank eventually finds his fate with a sawmill machine and succumbs to wounds sustained in this accident. Notably, both men die in the fight for a wife, where Kanty’s ghost kills Banks who previously takes the former’s life away (Hurston 105-111).

In her writing, Zora Neale Hurston always focus on the black community. She interrogated how black women are long-suffered and abused in the work of literature (Martin). She excludes the misery and oppression that blacks suffered, but mainly focused on what she knew of the Southern black existence (“Hurston,” Authors). Her friends encouraged Hurston to focus on her fiction because it allowed her to expound more strength of the rich humanistic significance of black life, rather than anthropology studies (“Hurston,” Gale and Authors). During the next few years, she strived for her interest in folklore (“Hurston,” Authors). Blending folklore and fiction became a trait of a famous author, indicate a beginning of her career as a folklorist, and represent a style of her storytelling (“Hurston,” Authors). Black folklore and storytelling represented the short novels named Hoodoo in America and Tell My Horse (“Hurston,” Authors). The short novels are about her studies of Caribbean voodoos in the past 1930s (“Hurston,” Authors). The Journal in American Folklore was where the novel published (“Hurston,” Authors). Voodoo was the first important act undertaken by an African-American expert (Showalter 227). In later years, agricultural black folk characters, both real and imagined, influenced Hurston’s world as a little child which inspired her writing of fiction and non-fiction (“Hurston,” Feminist). Characters

In “What White Publishers Won’t Print" Zora Neale Hurston writers about how we need more diversity within publishing because in order to get published back in 1947 there needed to be white approval. She cements her argument by saying the only thing white people approve is black pain and that only seeing ourselves in pain is detrimental to the community.

“One of the greatest writers of our time,” says Toni Morrison referring to Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston (Anna Lillios, 2014).. Zora Neale Hurston, one of the most famous writers of this era left a legacy through her pieces of writing during the Harlem Renaissance by celebrating black culture in her pieces. Her writing was known to be very original and artistic. Zora Neale Hurston was bold with her ideas for writing. Her writing wasn't limited by conventional expectations. Hurston was confident and courageous in her writing leading others to be inspired by her work. Hurston changed history though writing. Her writing still affects us today because of how powerful her words were. Zora Neale Hurston changed history and

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.

In Claire Crabtree’s journal article, “The Confluence of Folklore, Feminism and Black Self-Determination in Zora Neal Hurston’s ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God’”, it addresses the large role that folklore plays regarding Janie’s growth as a character. Moreover, it states how the influence of Folklore culture shaped Janie’s experiences as a Black woman in the South. Initially, Crabtree described the integration of folk material and how it developed Janie’s journey of identity. Folklore culture affected Janie’s perception in relationships, career aspirations, and her limited role as a woman. Nevertheless, Crabtree explains how folklore is merged to the themes of feminism and Black self-determination. Moreover, she discusses how the style of narration and the novel’s unique storytelling frame amplifies the authentic aspect of the text. She

It is impossible for anyone to survive a horrible event in their life without a relationship to have to keep them alive. The connection and emotional bond between the person suffering and the other is sometimes all they need to survive. On the other hand, not having anyone to believe in can make death appear easier than life allowing the person to give up instead of fighting for survival. In The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill, Aminata Diallo survives her course through slavery by remembering her family and the friends that she makes. Aminata is taught by her mother, Sira to deliver babies in the villages of her homeland. This skill proves to be very valuable to Aminata as it helps her deliver her friends babies and create a source of

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is about a young woman that is lost in her own world. She longs to be a part of something and to have “a great journey to the horizons in search of people” (85). Janie Crawford’s journey to the horizon is told as a story to her best friend Phoebe. She experiences three marriages and three communities that “represent increasingly wide circles of experience and opportunities for expression of personal choice” (Crabtree). Their Eyes Were Watching God is an important fiction piece that explores relations throughout black communities and families. It also examines different issues such as, gender and class and these issues bring forth the theme of voice. In Janie’s attempt to find herself, she

On January 7, 1891, Zora Neale Hurston was born in the tiny town of Notasulga, Alabama. She was the fifth of eight children in the Hurston household. Her father John was a carpenter, sharecropper, and a Baptist preacher; and her mother Lucy, a former schoolteacher. Within a year of Zora's birth, the family moved to Eatonville, Florida; a town, which held historical significance as the first, incorporated Black municipality in the United States.

Hurston illustrated that how blacks provided American culture with “its only genuine folk tradition”. She was “the only key writer of the Harlem literary movement to carry out a organized study of Afro-American folklore”. In Their Eyes Were Watching God (first published in 1937), she describes her black identity as a consequent from African heritage. Since her early life in Eatonville, Hurston was nurtured by colorful, figurative storytelling. Hurston’s folk pride is very well documented in her portrayal of Eatonville in almost all her novels. She observed this little black hamlet as a haven in the race biased US. Her characters experience tranquility and prosperity only at

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

Racism is a cultural force that individuals can struggle against or yield to. It is a social construct, a free-floating force that affects everyone, white or black, weak enough to succumb to it. Hurston includes these ideas in the society and culture in which Janie lives in. The african-american community has always been under the rule of whites. So in order to acquire power, they feel that they must become like white people. In Their Eyes Were, whiteness provides power to those who possess it; this is shown by Nanny’s lecture, by Joe’s behavior, and by Mrs.Turner’s worshiping of caucasians.

During this time in a movement known as the Great Migration, thousands of African-Americans also known as Negros left their homes in the South and moved North toward the beach line of big cities in search of employment and a new beginning. As Locke stated, “the wash and rush of this human tide on the beach line of Northern city centers is to be explained primarily in terms of a new vision of opportunity, of social and economic freedom, of a spirit to seize, even in the face of an extortionate and heavy toll, a chance for the improvement of conditions. With each successive wave of it, the movement of the Negro becomes more and more a mass movement toward the larger

Zora Neale Hurston was born on January 7, 1891 in Alabama. She is known to be one of the most influential novelist of the twentieth century in African America literature. Hurston is described to be a very opinionated woman that stood for what she believed in; which reflected in some of her works. In addition to her many titles such as, being an anthropologist and short story writer, she was closely related and heavily focused on the Harlem Renaissance. Zora Neale Hurston and her political opinions placed her at odds with important figures during that time which I wholeheartedly believe played a part in the undeniable attraction that most people have towards her works. Being that Hurston was such a unique writer, to understand the ethics and themes of her and how she contributed to African American literature comes with an understanding of the background and childhood she had.

In the beginning Locke tells us about “the tide of Negro migration”. During this time in a movement known as the Great Migration, thousand of African Americans also known as Negros left their homes in the South and moved North toward the beach line of big cities in search of employment and a new beginning. They left the South because of racial violence such as the Ku Klux Klan and economic discrimination not able to obtain work. Their migration was an expression of their changing attitudes toward themselves as Locke said best From The New Negro, and has been described as "something like a spiritual emancipation." Many African Americans moved to Harlem, a neighborhood located in