Zora Neal Hurston
b. 1891 d. 1960
In our discussion of Hurston’s “How it Feels to be Colored Me” and “The Gilded
Six-Bits,” I proposed to you the idea of the “critical possibilities of marginality.”
Here is how Priscilla Wald, in her essay “Becoming ‘Colored’”: The Self-
Authorized Language of Difference in Zora Neal Hurston” (from the Spring 1990
American Literary History), uses this phrase:
“As an anthropologist and as an African American writer during the Harlem
Renaissance, Hurston was uniquely situated to explore the critical possibilities
of marginality “(79).
How, following Wald’s question, was Hurston “uniquely” situated to engage in
such enquiry? Where do we see evidence, in the texts that you read, of her
experience as an anthropologist? How do her education, her artistry, her
experience growing up in an African American town in Florida, combine to allow
her unique access to “the critical possibilities of marginality”?
Is most usages, “marginality” connotes a negative, or difficult, cultural
placement for a subject. If Hurston, in fact, explores the “critical possibilities”
of marginality, what does she do to marginality itself? How is Hurston marginal
and not marginal, at various times in her life?
In “The Gilded Six-Bits,” how is her style “realist”? Further, does she appear to
place a value on the characters she creates? Does she praise or discredit
them? Does she judge their morality, by either applauding or criticizing their
behaviors? What is “The Gilded Six-Bits” about, if you were pushed to
simplify? The family – Missie May and Joe – strive to keep a united family
despite hardship. What sorts of hardship do they face?
Returning to the notion of marginality, we discussed some of the ways in which
Hurston might be conceived of as doubly marginal: she is a woman and she is
an African American woman. Yet, she constructs herself, in “How it Feels to be
Colored Me,” as the ultimate example – as exceptional – and as
comprehensively different and embodying difference – as an exception. Think
about the differences between these two terms. How does she describe herself
as the ultimate “feminine”? And, how does she describe the
“essential” differences between “blackness” (think of her example regarding
how she feels music) and whiteness?
We ended our class on Hurston considering the question of whether one could
be “pivotal and marginal” at the same time. So, in regard to Hurston, what do
you think?