Who Is Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston Research Paper In the 1900’s it was bad enough to be colored, needless to say worse if you were a woman. Zora Neale Hurston had the misfortune of possessing both of these traits during this misogynistic, segregated era. Born in Nostulga, Alabama, on January 15th 1891, she experienced segregation at a young age living in Eatonville Florida for most of her childhood. After going through many hardships in her life, including the loss of her mother at age 13, she would be accepted to Howard University where her writing Career would begin. Following college she moved to New York City, where she became a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance. She later moved back to her natal home: the South to be immersed in one of the hearths
of African American culture. She produced her most Famous Works: Their Eyes Were Watching God and Dust Tracks in the Road, during this time. She died in Ft. Pierce Florida, January 28, 1960.
Her works would be discovered a little after her death, intriguing future generations in such novels. The life of Zora Neale Hurston affected the ideas, language, and setting of her works. Eatonville, Florida is more the just the residence of Zora Neale Hurston; it is a part of her, reflected in her writing, being the setting of most of her novels. Despite the fact she was born in Nostulga, Alabama, Hurston claims she was born in Eatonville, Florida, in her autobiography Dust Tracks on a Road. She spent the entirety of her childhood in Eatonville. Eatonville was one of the few all-black communities in America at that time. Zora Neale Huston’s father was the mayor of the town, allowing Hurston’s childhood to be relatively easy. This would serve as a sharp contrast, with the rest of her life. Her childhood was by no means perfect. She reminisces in her autobiography Dust Tracks on a Road “Often I was in some lonesome wilderness, suffering strange things and agonies while other children in the same yard played without a care. I asked myself why me? Why? Why? A cosmic loneliness was my shadow. Nothing and nobody around me really touched me.” Her mother was a crucial part for assisting Zora to deal
with her differentness, encouraging her endeavors in the liberal arts. Unfortunately, she died when Zora was only 13. This plunged Zora into a ten year period which she refers to as her “haunted years”. During this time she was forced to leave her beloved hometown of Eatonville. Leaving the all-black community which she was born in, she was introduced to racism while attending school in Jacksonville. In her autobiography she states that they (the school) “made me know that I was a little colored girl.” Zora returned to Eatonville, leaving shortly after getting into a fight with her stepmother. She vanished from public records for the next couple years; she claims she was working service jobs at this time. Two years after her haunted years, in which she was a maid of a Theater Troup, Zora suffered appendicitis attack which forced her to stop working as a maid. Following her quick recovery, she attended Morgan Academy; lying about her age by ten years to be admitted. Proceeding, her graduation she attended Howard University. It was here where she would meet other intellectuals of her time, and develop her famous dialog. It was at Howard where she learned how to make her dialog more “African” in speech from Lorenzo Dow Turner. At Howard she was able to join a literary club run by Alaine Locke, and become part of a group of writers called “The New Negros”. The members of the New Negros (herself include) would be the center of the Harlem Renaissance.
Hurston began to publish short stories in during her time in University.
Encouraged by Alaine Locke, Hurston submitted stories to the editor of Opportunity magazine. The second story she submitted in 1924 “Drenched in Light” received an award from the magazine. Recognizing her talent in literature, the editor of Oppurtunity asked Hurston to move to New York City. Hurston moved into Harlem the following year. In 1925, a year after she moved, Zora met iconic figures of the Harlem Renaissance such as Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Annie Nathan Meyer. She later would go to Barnard College to study anthropology, which subsequently sent her back the South and her hometown of Eatonville to study Black culture. However, the only way she could afford to go back and study Black culture was by accepting financial backing from Charlotte Mason. This would prove as a fatal blunder for Hurston as she broke the relationship she had with Barnard College. The funding did help her as she now had more freedom in her fieldwork, studying voodoo (hoodoo) which would be the subject of her famous novel Mules and Men. Four years later the Great Depression hit, and Mason stopped backing her expeditions. During this time, she would come out with the works that defined her and the female Negros of the Harlem Renaissance. To make money she worked on a multitude of projects during this time, publishing her first novel: Jonah’s Gourd Vine and a collection of African folklore titled: Mules and Men.
She was granted a Guggenheim fellowship which allowed her to travel to the Caribbean and write her most famous work: Their Eyes Were Watching God. These highs were followed by a quick plummet of her career. Her novel ideas and dramatic works rejected. Her last major work was her autobiography Dust Tracks on a Road. She never stopped writing, but she never published another novel in these last ten years of her life. She was forced to go to a welfare home, and she died broke in St. Pierce, Florida. She was relatively forgotten until Alice Walker brought her work back into prominence with her essay “In Search of Zora Neale Hurston.