Zora's life had an impact on her works because unlike other black authors she did not deal so much with the racial problem but instead she focused on the problems inside the black family.  The 1920's marked migration period of blacks from the south to the north on a quest for jobs and equality.  This is also known as the Harlem Renaissance.  One of the many black writers of the Harlem Renaissance is Zora Neale Hurston.  Zora became an inspiration to the black community through her life, career both playing a major role in her works.

 Zora Neale Hurston

Zora felt unloved by her father and felt that her sister Sara was her father's girl.  Zora was always known as the outspoken child, and her father disliked it greatly.  Often Zora was called a liar by her grandmother and father.  Her mother, however, knew there was something special about Zora and called her "Mama's Child."  Zora loved to hear and read stories as much as she could, even though her father disapproved of it.  Zora's mother started to become very ill, and it was devastating for Zora.  When her mother died, Zora was nine and she rebelled against her father.  Like her other siblings, she was sent to boarding school after her mother's death.  Some months later her father was remarried.  Zora was outraged and when she came home she and her stepmother found themselves in a brawl.  Zora finished high school at Morgan Academy in Baltimore, then she went on to Howard University and studied anthropology.  There she also published her short story Stylus. Zora then was awarded a scholarship to Barnard College in New York.  Not soon after did Zora move to Manhattan, New York, and what better time than the Harlem Renaissance.

Zora's Writing Career
 

 
 

Criticism
 

    In Criticism from June Jordon on Their Eyes Were Watching God she states that " Protest, narrowly conceived, is therefore beside the point; rhythm or tones of outrage or desperate flight would be wholly inappropriate in her text. Instead, you slip into a total, Black reality where Black people do not represent issues: they represent their own, particular selves in a Family/Community setting that permits relaxa-tion from hunted/warrior postures, and that fosters the natural, person-postures of courting, jealousy, ambition, dream, sex, work, partying, sorrow, bitterness, celebration, and fellowship.   Consequently this novel centers itself on Blacklove even as Native Son rivets itself upon white hatred. " June also expresses that the novel shows "Blacklove."

Sterling A. Brown's criticism for Their Eyes Were Watching God also agreed to that of June Jordon's.  Brown states that "this is not the story of Miss Hurston's own people, as the foreword states, for the Negro novel is as unachievable as the Great American Novel. Living in an all-colored town, these people escape the worst pressures of class and caste. There is little harshness; there is enough money and work to go around. The author does not dwell upon the "people ugly from ignorance and broken from being poor" who swarm upon the "muck" for short-time jobs."

However critic Lucy Tompkins looks at Their Eyes Were Watching God from a different point of view she states "Their Eyes Were watching God is Zora Hurston's third novel, again about her own people and it is beautiful. It is about Negroes, and a good deal of it is written in dialect, but really it is about every one, or at least every one who isn't so civilized that he has lost the capacity for glory. "
 
 I personally found this book difficult to read because of the dialect.  However, I understand that the dialect is meant to bring people closer to the characters world and life.  Many times we can see the black atmosphere captured in the book.  For example, in the beginning how the women in the neighborhood talk about Janie because she chooses not to associate herself with that group, shows how African-Americans sometimes are towards one another.  Not only does she deal with the black family problems but also the problems within any household.  Men leave their wives for younger women and the wives are left to deal with it.  The fact that Zora does not close her story to relate to one specific group of people made her a well renowned author. 
 

Zora's Last Days

    Zora Neale Hurston, the great female writer of the 1920's and 1930's finally found a way to express herself, which she had waited for all her life.  To the day of her death, Zora was still writing.  Zora died of heart disease in 1960. Zora writings were rich and enriched others, however the African-American struggle continued and money had to be raised for her burial.  She was buried in her hometown in Florida because there were no brothers or sisters to tell where she should be buried.  Zora had an excellent impact on the world as we know it and her legacy continues to live each day.
 
 

Bibliography

Yannuzzi, Della A. Zora Neale Hurston: Southern Storyteller
       Enslow Publishers: Springfield, New Jersey 1996.

Saturday Review of Literature. 1937. Comtemporary Literary
      Criticism, Vol. 30,61

America Online 1999: www.askjeeves.com
 
 
 

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