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?