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
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
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.