Subjects:
accepted in its time. Her work was not recognized and she died penniless and unknown in
Florida. Even though Zora’s talents of writing were not acknowledged, her work made a
difference in the African American Literature society. She wrote many different stories
including the award winning Their Eyes Were Watching God and Dust Tracks on a Road. Zora
addressed issues of race and gender, often relating them to the search for freedom.
Zora’s most acclaimed novel Their Eyes Were Watching God tells the story of a
strong, passionate, and independent woman named Janie May Crawford (Andrews 402). She
comes back to her hometown and tells her life story to her friend, Phoeby. Janie was raised on a
plantation by her grandmother. Janie searches for freedom throughout the story by trying to be
her own woman and refuses to be tied down by the stereotype that black women carry heavy
loads on their backs. Even though Janie felt this way, her grandmother told her the way she has
“Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find
. . .
concludes that perhaps it was God's intention to make us all that way. Zora can simply work to get whatever she
can. She must deal
with money and figures without being able to enjoy the “lying sessions” on the porch, or
attending town events. Her published work remains a testament to
that struggle and an inspiration for those who have followed in her footsteps. So de white man throw down de load
and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. Buy Saving Stamps (24)
In her 1928 essay, "How It Feels to Be Colored Me," Zora Neale Hurston exults that
being black may have its challenges, but it also has its opportunities and victories. In this book Zora writes about how she conquered great odds of success in a time
period that denied equal opportunities and black achievement (---. Until then, she saw white people only as passers-through her
town, uninteresting if they were local, but intensely interesting if they were tourists. Growing up in
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an all-Negro town of Eatonville, Florida, she says she never even knew that she was "colored"
until she was in her early teens.
When Dust Tracks on a Road was published Hurston wrote an eloquent plea for
patriotism: “Freedom is a cemetery flower – rooted in struggle and nourished in
blood. De nigger woman is de mule uh de
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world so fur as Ah can see.
Zora went to great lengths to assume readers she was not bitter over the treatment
of her people. " Slavery, she says, is sixty years past,
and "the price I paid for civilization. " She feels it most often when she
is set against an all-white background, as she was when she attended Barnard College as the only
black student.
Essay's Topics
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