Zora Neale Hurston

for race relations and gender role. Zora Neale Hurston was a writer who grew up during this time period and went threw a series of events prior to writing the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. At an early age Hurston’s mother passed away and her father went off to remarry but continued to pay for her education till he eventually stopped. For a bit of time she became a maid for an actress in a touring Gilbert and Sullivan group. Soon after this episode, Hurston enrolled into Howard University…

Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes have differing ideas about the passing on of ideas. In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie rejects the ideas that were passed down to her by her grandmother, while in Langston Hughes poems, he emphasizes the preservation of ideas and culture passed down through generations. Growing up with her grandmother, Janie’s inchoate sense of self, like any other child inundated with the views of his or her guardian, takes on Nanny’s…

This book was very interesting. It had a lot of interesting themes that are relevant today, almost 80 years after the book was written. One thing I took note of in the book was the male character's attraction to Janie's hair. I don't know if this was something the author included in the story to signify Janie's beauty but I believe that the obsession with her hair represents the idolization of white features. Janie is described to have long silky straight hair that falls to her back, which is…

Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God is set in Florida during the late 1930’s about a woman telling her story to a young girl about how she turned her life around. The novel is set up as a frame, in which the story starts and ends the same way, with only a couple hours going by. Janie and Pheoby are sitting outside on the porch, while Janie is telling a story. The story is the novel, but in the end, only two hours had gone by and both women are sitting in the same rocking chairs as…

resulting in a torrent of equally contentious books, with Their Eyes Were Watching God as no exception. Deemed as one of the most significant and influential works of African American literature, Their Eyes Were Watching God, a 1937 classic by Zora Neale Hurston, tells the story of a black woman, named Janie Crawford, raised in the South. A strong and fiercely independent female protagonist, Janie Crawford finds herself on a journey of self-realization as she battles society’s expectations, as…

In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston writes a story that revolutionizes and contradicts the traditional gender roles of the 1930’s. The basis of this book is about the ever-changing love life about a young girl named Janie. Throughout her various marriages, she becomes versed in herself and in the end, learns to be self-reliant and not reliable on others. Her first marriage was set up on a false hope. Every grandmother’s hope for her grandchild is to be married and…

Zora Neale Hurston’s “their eyes were watching god” and its connections to Harlem Renaissance “The Harlem Renaissance was the name given to the cultural, social, and artistic explosion that took place in Harlem between the end of World War I and the middle of the 1930s. During this period Harlem was a cultural center, drawing black writers, artists, musicians, photographers, poets, and scholars” (Wormser R., 2002). Hurston has been one of the influential figure and a leader the Harlem…

As a commentary on the social system of the late 1930’s, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston truly reflects the norms of the time period in an accurate manner. Hurston was heavily impacted by the traditions and folklores of the African American culture, which are reflected within the ideals of the novel. From the desire to create an individual culture to the relentless search for love, Hurston includes elements that she discovered as she travelled and saw on the rise in the black…

Born January 7th 1891 to a Baptist preacher and a former teacher, Zora Neale Hurston was one of the most inspirational figures of the Harlem Renaissance. With a birthplace like Notasulga, Alabama and a hometown like Eatonville, Florida - it’s no wonder that Ms. Hurston dedicated her life portraying what it was like to grow up in the South. Surrounded by African American culture and immersed in a higher middle class upbringing, she at first felt as though she were somewhat privileged in the way…

I do not believe Janie Crawford is the ‘new black woman’, — for to be new it must have not existed, but black women have existed since the beginning of time. The term may be correct because Zora Neale Hurston’s character is one that has not been searched for before. Here it is important to argue that during a time in the Harlem Renaissance when all that mattered was dealing with race — rarely gender, and never sexual identity - Janie Crawford is not a ‘new black woman’, rather she represents a…