Category: Zora Neale Hurston

During the early 20th Century, both Zora Neale Hurston and Audre Lorde write about their experiences as strong African-American young women facing extensive racial discrimination, recounting similar but very different stories in their essays. These accounts are diverse in the management of their plight but typical for the voice of the generation and an unfortunate but accurate reflection of historical times. They both employ figurative language and bright imagery, taking the reader on a colorful journey through their childhoods.

A young Hurston was originally raised in an all-black community located in Eatonville, Florida. When she was there, she describes moments when she sang, danced and greeted neighbors in the streets and observed her community from a comfortable and safe spot on her front porch. At that time, she was “everybody’s Zora,” without the feeling of alienation or difference. She “felt her race” when she was thirteen after her mother passed away and she had to leave home to attend a boarding school in Jacksonville, Florida. This is where she immediately became “colored”. After that, she went to New York and attended Barnard College, where she felt like a “a dark rock surged upon, over swept by a creamy sea.”

Lorde was born and raised in New York City to Caribbean immigrant parents where she realized that she was “different” when she traveled to Washington DC after her eighth-grade graduation (the trip was a present to both her and her sister, Phyllis, who graduated high school at the same time). Similarly, Lorde describes her experience as “everything white”. While her family was trying to get a little something to cool off at Breyer’s (ice cream and soda fountain), her white waitress at the white counter refused to serve her white ice cream to escape the white heat on the white pavement, where she wasn’t able to appreciate the white stone monuments offered by the city. She also repetitively uses the words, “colored”, “black” and “negro” to define herself and others like her. By use of these labels, it is apparent Audre sees that her innocence is diminished, and that the world is nothing more than black and white.

These women have different points of view, however. Zora Neale Hurston explores the discovery of her identity and self-pride through the extended metaphors she writes and does not consider herself “tragically colored”. She says that African-Americans have had to minimize their racial identities to force others to treat them as equals or to lessen the discrimination they suffer. From all of her hardships endured, she emerges stronger whilst she “sharpens her oyster knife”, getting ready for the world – rather than weeping for it. Zora acknowledges racial differences, nevertheless, when she describes a moment she had in The New World Cabaret (a music club), marking further distinction between colors. While the jazz harmonies begin to play, her soul is engaged and she feel “like she is in the jungle, living in the jungle way”, whereas her white male friend sits motionless, smoking a cigarette. She remarks, “he has only heard what I felt”.

Alternatively, the inherited superiority of white people has scarred Audre Lorde, and she understands that she is not equal – according to her essay. She struggles with her classification and identity, separating American citizens into different categories. Since racism is very prevalent, her newfound adulthood coincides with her revelation that America is not the country she thought it was. She feels exposed to the realities of life; from a child to a woman. What was once a thought of a perfect country is spoiled by injustice and racism as she faces discrimination and oppression.

Hurston makes sense of her experience by running towards rather than away from her African-American identity. She uses a metaphor for people as different colored bags, all of which are filled with the random contents that make up life. If you were to dump out the pieces and then refill the bags, none would differ greatly – regardless of the color of their bag (skin). She does not engage in self-pity but takes difference and racial discrimination in stride.

The change between childhood and adulthood is quickly felt for Lorde as her family is denied service at that ice cream parlor in Washington DC. Without protest, they quietly get down from their stools, outraged, as if they “had never been black before”. Her parents felt they could have avoided the situation had they anticipated it. When the true racist America is revealed, the tone of her tale quickly shifts from excitement to disappointment. Her parents and sibling do not feel the waitress’ act is anti-American but Audre is so moved that she writes an angry letter to the President of the United States (all by herself), disappointed and sickened by the graduation gift she received.

The emergence of Modernism as a global literary and philosophical movement in the early to mid-20th century allowed for greater recognition of artistic expression amongst marginalized groups – especially women and people of color. With an emphasis on individualism and experimentation in writing and poetry, the voices of two women in particular became known: Zora Neale Hurston and Sylvia Plath. With a unique form that focused on the juxtaposition between interior thought and external expression, they each contribute to the tale of progression in United States history. Through Plath’s use of free verse poem form and death imagery and Hurston’s detailed linear storytelling and use of the personal narrative, the most honest parts of a growing up and womanhood are revealed – each representing their version of what it means to be a woman in the 20th century.

In “How It Feels To Be Colored Me,” Zora Neale Hurston uses a conversational tone grounded in reality to share stories of her life and her interpretation of what it means to be a black person in the United States. Growing up in the Eatonville, Florida, Hurston discusses the first time she “became colored” (Hurston 958): “The only white people I knew passed through the town going to or coming from Orlando. The native whites rode dusty horses, the Northern tourists chugged down the sandy village road in automobiles. The town knew the Southerners and never stopped cane chewing when they passed. But the Northerners were something else again.” (Hurston 958)

Here, Hurston reveals an indifference with the “native whites” (Hurston 958). She views them as people that are uninteresting and can easily be ignored because of their familiarity to her and her community. Hurston continues by shifting focus back to the people from the North: “They were peered at cautiously from behind curtains by the timid. The more venturesome would come out on the porch to watch them go past and got just as much pleasure out of the tourists as the tourists got out of the village.” (Hurston 958)

As a child, Hurston’s interest in white people is not based on race, but rather whether they come from – viewing “Northerners” (Hurston 958) as people that are almost foreign to her. She rejects the significance of race, perceiving these travelers as a spectacle that she – as the first ‘welcome-to-our state Floridian’ (Hurston 959) in her family – gets to welcome into her community. Once becoming a teenager, however, Hurston – heading north to school in Jacksonville – discovers that the people were not as interested in her as she was in them:

“I was their [Eatonville’s] Zora nevertheless. I belonged to them… But changes came… When I disembarked from the river-boat at Jacksonville, she was no more. It seemed that I had suffered a sea change. I was not Zora of Orange County any more, I was now a little colored girl.” (Hurston 959)

Where Hurston speaks to what life is like as she lives it, Sylvia Plath expresses her uncertainty of what is to come. Plath’s free verse poem “You’re” is a confessional ode to her unborn child. Stylistically, it has the feeling of a private letter or diary page – a technique that allows the reader to see into the inner workings of Plath’s mind. The first stanza begins by speaking to the joy and anxious anticipation Plath feels while waiting:

“Clownlike, happiest on your hands,

Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled,

Gilled like a fish.” (Lines 1-3)

The use of a specific word such as “clownlike” (Line 1) speaks to the happiness and innocent quality that all children possess at first. The phrase “gilled like a fish” (Line 3) is also particularly powerful. It expresses how base and undeveloped the potential life is – the uncertainty being the source of Plath’s anxieties and anticipation. Plath continues this thought, elaborating further on her feeling of uncertainty:

“Vague as fog and looked for like mail.

Farther off than Australia.” (Lines 10-11)

Plath’s use of the simile “vague as fog” (Line 10) creates the sense of barrier she feels between her and her child. While fog itself does not erase detail, it does muddle the image of something that a person is trying to view. As an adult, Plath has already experienced loss, pain, and struggle unique to her experience as a woman in a male-dominated society. Here, Plath conveys her longing to know what the fetus will be like – a clear indication of her desire to protect her child and prepare them for the world they will soon enter. Importantly, in the final lines of her poem, Plath describes the newness and innocence she hopes to protect from disappoint and disillusionment:

“Right, like a well-done sum.

A clean slate, with your own face on.” (Lines 17-18)

In her sign-off, Plath expresses her belief that the next generation is the best of humanity. As “a clean slate” (Line 18), her child represents a fresh start and hope for a better future.

In this unit on the African American experience in colonial and pre-Civil War America, several ‘heroes’ have both appeared and been discussed in class while others still remain to be explored in more detail which are: Frances Harper, Harriet Wilson, Jack Johnson, George Herriman, Eubie Blake, Arthur W. Mitchel,…etc. But the one heroine that I really love and I’m going to talk about that person in my project is Zora Neale Hurston. Zora Neale Hurston was born in January 7 1891. She was a talented American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker. One of her four most popular novels back then was “Their Eyes Were Watching God’. It was published in 1937. In 1938, she published her research on Haitian Vodou by a book named: ”Tell My Horse-Voodoo And Life in Haitian And Jamaica’. This book is based on her personal experiences in Haiti and Jamaica as an initiate rather than just an observer during her visits in the 1930s and it’s about Voodoo practices,rituals,and beliefs. It is a travelogue into a dark,mystical world that offers a vividly authentic picture of ceremonies,customers,and superstitions. And she described racial struggles in the early 20th century American South. Hurston also wrote a lot of short stories, essays and even plays.

Zora Neale Hurston was born in Notasulga, Alabama where her father grew up and her paternal grandfather was the preacher of a Baptist church. She was the fifth child in her family out of eight children. Four of her grandparents (on both of her parents’ sides) were born into slavery. Her father was a carpenter but before that he was a Baptist preacher and sharecropper. Her mom was a teacher and she taught students at school. Then in 1894 when she was three years old, she moved to Eatonville, Florida with her family. In 1887, it was one of the first all-black towns incorporated in the United States. She sometimes claimed it was her birthplace since her family moved there when she was too young. A few years later, her father was elected as mayor of the town in 1897. In 1902 he was called to serve as minister of its largest church, Macedonia Missionary Baptist. As Hurston grew up to an adult usually used Eatonville as a setting of her story which was a place where African Americans could live as they desired, independent of white society. In 1901, some northern school teachers had a visit to where Hurston lived and they gave her some books that helped her opened her mind to literature. Later, she described this personal literary awakening as a kind of ‘birth’. In her 1928 essay ‘How It Feels To Be Colored Me’, she described the experience of growing up in Eatonville for the rest of her childhood. Hurston’s mother died in 1904, and her father subsequently married Mattie Moge in 1905. This was considered scandalous, as it was rumored that he had had sexual relations with Moge before his first wife’s death.[14] Hurston’s father and stepmother sent her to a Baptist boarding school in Jacksonville, Florida. They eventually stopped paying her tuition and she was dismissed.

In 1916, Hurston was employed as a maid by the lead singer of the Gilbert & Sullivan theatrical company. In 1917, she resumed her formal education, attending Morgan College, the high school division of Morgan State University, a historically black college in Baltimore, Maryland. At this time, apparently to qualify for a free high-school education, the 26-year-old Hurston began claiming 1901 as her year of birth. In 1918, she graduated from the high school of Morgan State University.

Later on, she used Eatonville as the setting for most of her stories. It is now the site of the ‘Zora! Festival’, held each year in her honor. She used to be a student at Barnard College and Columbia University. There, she conducted anthropological and ethnographic research. She was really interested in African-American and Caribbean folklore, and how these contributed to the community’s identity. Hurston also wrote fiction about contemporary issues in the black community and became a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance.

Nowadays people are so lucky. They can find a lot of information about specific person in the past or present. Therefore, internet and reliable resources play significant role in the researches which helps. Thanks to professor who teaches differently. It was interesting to read and search information about African writer, anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston. In these resources authors described her from different angles, but there were similar characteristics. It has been reported that Zora Neale Hurston was a feminist who fought for African culture and more specifically for the rights of black people, namely for the rights of black women writers. This essay will divide to some paragraphs where will be discussed and compared about Zora Hurston life experiences and her researches.

At the beginning of this resource reflects Zora Neale Hurston biography that she was born in Notasulga, Alabama. Then author telling about her way to literature and her career, she started to write about African American life, it is remind me Alykul Osmonov (Kyrgyz writer who wrote about Kyrgyz life) who also faced difficulties in the literary world during his period of life and sought to make Kyrgyz culture valuable. During her university life she was tried to learn more about Haiti, Jamaica and she collected information about folklore. Mostly, author wrote about Zora Hurston’s first three novels. She focused on individuality of every person; it was a fight in literature world. Author described Hurston’s stories and each of her novels has something deeply and at the same time it is look like typically American family, romantic. Despite of some limits in black literature she wrote invented stories where was about political things. But not all Neale stories was romantic others was about crime and murder. Zora Neale Hurston was able to be a writer, but she preferred to have research and then even travel in that land to find evidences for own hypothesis. Author wrote really short information about her style in literature. In all Hurston’s stories the important things was innocence triumphs over corruption, also there was feminism that women always in a role of victim. Kaplan (2000) studied that married male unfaithfulness was chastised in Zora Hurston imagined world. She wrote that women as a subject of violence and violation of women’s rights (p.307). As an anthropologist her research was directed in specific area.

A person always seeks for education, especially in Zora Neale Hurston period, when black people had not rights for education and the possibility. She could not imagine that she could pass to Howard University, because in that time was some limits for black people and it was even impossible to pass universities like Howard. She started working but that was difficult for her to work in the clubs because she should pay tuition for university, where was white aristocrats. After long way to own dream she could pass to Howard University. Boyd (2003) wrote Zora Hurston’s words “You have taken me in. I am a tiny bit of your greatness. I swear to you that I shall never make you ashamed of me.’ (p.105). these her words were a motto and motivation for her. During study at the University she worked also in beauty shop as a part time job. At the morning she had classes and after work she had time for home works. She was very ambitious and aspired precisely because of her strength and self-belief that she managed everything. At the Howard University she tried herself in languages and English was the best that she tried to write her first writings. Ant she tried to show her feelings through paper. Then due to this job she start to earn money and she tried to be as other in the Howard university. She showed simple women feelings by buying dresses and beautiful clothes. Every woman has those feelings. Neale had a friend and they were members of one club. Zora Neale Hurston knew that she could do something better. And then she published her first poem. She was always a big dreamer and she contributed to this. Zora always had something inside which directed her to African culture. Hurston knew features of black language and published in this language some poems. She contributed own work to university community and here started her way in literature.

Zora Neale Hurston was one of those who considered necessary to communicate with white patrons, because they were the ones who sponsored black authors. Majority of authors were in one idea about Hurston and condemn her while others looked her from another angle. Interracial problem in Zora’s time most of black people wanted to be a special and wanted to be a different, to be noticed by white people because that way they could get the place they wanted. It could be money, grants and so on. So, what about black women? It was difficult for women to say something about their rights. Especially, there was a competition with black men writers. Author told about black literature that even black critics said about stories that they exaggerated. It is mostly about inside things in black culture. According to Story (1989) wrote that “The black writer sometimes gets his eyes so fixed on the white world and its ways of acting toward us that his vision becomes constricted. He reflects, if he is not careful, but one aspect of his people’s experiences: suffering, humiliation, degradation” (p.28). Black writers were fixated on one problem that they would not be able to convey the true needs and culture of the people. They wanted to convey that they are something more than just black people. One of the Zora Hurston books is “Watching God” where was described connection between man and women. Story (1989) found “Watching God is a novel that exposed philosophical differences between black men and women; equally significant, the reviews of the novel revealed a literary division of labor and hierarchy before there was a concerted and consistently visible women’s movement, which has provided the ideological and literary foreground for the views of black women writers” (p.29). She wrote that black women writers had different values, while black male writers had the same vision of problems, black men writers did not want to see women fighting for sexual equality. Zora Neale Hurston was a women who stated to debate for women equality. Therefore, here was feminism in Hurston; she tried to get role for black women writers in that society.

Since childhood Zora Neale Hurston was different child. Area where she grew up is called Eatonville. The city which was called “Black town”. Hurston wrote a book “Mules and men”. Abbott (1991) found notes “Florida is a place that draws people white people from all over the world and Negroes from every Southern state surely and some from the North and West” (p.176). Therefore, she collected most of her research information here. She tried to observe area. In anthropology is called participant observation when an anthropologist involved by himself/herself to research. Besides, she got an opportunity to learn black folklore. Without any doubt, that was exactly what she wanted. Zora Neale Hurston in the end of her life was a poor woman. Then her literature career finish when she died as a poor woman who was not materialist. Author described a life after her death that they investigate her literature. After her death was stated Zora Neale Hurston Festival where participated female writers who praised her. In the festival was a lot of sphere starting from charity and so on. And then they had “Zora Neale Hurston memory” all people there start to think about writer. In which side they know her. One side is that she was just a part of her family, other side that she was a great anthropologist and author of poems. Some people had a tour in that places where Zora Neale Hurston was. She created herself as a strong woman, which wanted equality in literature world for all. And people loved her for it.

According to Curren (1995) the title of Zora Neale Hurston’s book is a key for Afro American life, black folk culture. The names of her book could mean something, many modern critics tried to analyze it though her novels. She wanted to increase the value of black literature, culture. Zora Neale Hurston gradually started to add all back society to literature world (p.17). Firstly, just like background and then step by step. For white people should be found appropriate approach and then move all what she wanted to add and show. Hurston was a realistic and tried to show it. The author of this article described plot of Zora’s book. He wanted to fasten all this facts by this. It was difficult for Zora to find a common language through literature. People cannot quickly start to adopt to something new, white people who had power and control did not want some changes. Especially, if it was a true or facts. At a time when there was racism and discrimination against its people. The rivalry between white people poets and black people poets. In all academic resources there is at least one percent mention that Zora fought for African culture. It’s one thing to write what you think and want and another thing to be judged for it. This was the fate she had chosen. Hurston was from Baptist Church where questions like how and what were undesirable to young girl. She was interesting more about African religion and folklore, but there also about Haiti and Voodoo. Hurston tried to show that voodoo and hoodoo evil.

One of the interesting facts that Zora Neale Hurston could sing. Majority of critics said that she used and sung like vocalist, but even here she had frameworks and she could not sing about her feelings. Neal was interested in black culture and she thought about black society in real and not real. Then authors collected her collector of songs. No wonder she was one of those women who fought for black women’s rights. African folklore is a culture that was interesting to Hurston; also she had a folklore voice. Zora Neale Hurston fascinating person who combined anthropology, literature, singing, theatre and all this like folklore. She was slandered in deception and many envied her. She fought for the people’s tradition and heritage. She had her own method of giving her feelings to her readers. She kept the balance between folklore and poetry and who but her could do it. Stupid ideology that women were forbidden everything and all the time they were oppressed. Not only were women being oppressed at that time but it was also unfortunate that black people were being oppressed and there were also their own oppressions inside of it. This is what she struggled with and the call of her works led to it. A call for justice and respect for its people. Reasoning all this in our time, too, there are some places where discrimination and violation of human rights continues. Thanks to Zora the right to vote and a normal life began from that time. Her feminist view inspires modern readers of our world. It is in such lessons as philosophy that its actions and actions are discussed. Especially if you are lucky with a Professor who teaches a completely different way. Then the last chapter in this article is about Hurston and Ethel. She took an example from Zora and mastered the skills that she did and of course the author says that many people took an example from her. She put on concert productions through which she conveyed the femininity of black women.

Zora Neale Hurston anthropologist, black woman writer by Tell My Horse analyzed value of black life, which was close to her. How many people do not know the essence or even the existence of this branch as anthropology? If we talk about his research it is that anthropologists are beginning to look for new horizons of research with different methods which are what Zora Neale did. Hurston as an anthropologist knew that the best way to learn is participant observation when you also participate in that society that you learning, you live, eat, play and doing everything with that people. According to Mikell (1982) “Hurston’s approach in Tell My Horse is consistent with her personalized approach to black Southern culture of which she was intimately a part. She had learned the richness and depth of black life, and yet was convinced that, having ‘been pitched headforemost into… the crib of Negroism, I had to have the spyglass of anthropology to look through” (p.219). she learned about Haiti as a colonial land. Then it was daily life of people in Jamaica. All this things was anthropological methods which she preferred. In her research she mentioned skin color discrimination, relationship between women and men. The most important part of her research was specially this. What did women do to deserve such treatment? And she wanted to find out because that was her main goal. In all the research she had, she mentioned freedom. This is a kind of food for thought for the modern critic. The role of women was not important in their society and life. When men wanted whiter wife, while black women was just defrauded. Zora Neale Hurston seen polygamy in Jamaica people life. She fought for the rights of the women who lived there, she worried for all women. She wanted to see them believe in themselves, respect themselves, and do everything. Although she planned to do her work on time, she did more than she planned and began to dig deeper. Zora Neale attitude to VOODOO and religion also went further than she had planned. All the traditions and rituals were studied by her. She found her black Afro culture.

Zora Neale Hurston was a writer who did not concern herself with the issues that surrounded her, the main one being the issue of race. It was her world and people were just living in it. She thought it was better to be colored that way she could stand out, she knew that she was someone special so why would she want to fit in with everyone else. Hurston made the statement, “…I feel like a brown bag of miscellany propped against a wall. Against a wall in the company with other bags, white, red, and yellow. Pour out the contents, and there is discovered a jumble of small things priceless and worthless (p. 961).” Hurston did not see color; in other words, she knew that people had different skin colors, but Hurston never paid any mind to that because it was what was on the inside that made everyone equal and showcased their personalities.

Hurston knew that people had similar characteristics, but they also possessed some differences. An example of this is when Hurston and a white person go to The New World Cabaret and she finds herself lost in the music and imagines herself as this African warrior in the jungle, wanting to kill and when the music’s over she looks over to the person who is just sitting all calm and collected. She makes the comment “The great blobs of purple and red emotion have not touched him. He has only heard what I felt… He is so pale with his whiteness then and I am so colored (p. 960).” This shows a strong stereotype among two different cultures, that white people do not appreciate music like black people do.

Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston were both writers that focused on the treatment of African Americans during the Harlem Renaissance. Hurston did not shed any bad light on the African American community because in her eyes it was already an uplifted race, she saw nothing wrong. Langston Hughes was the complete opposite; he wrote how African Americans were portrayed in the eyes of white people. In his poem, “I, Too”, Hughes shows the struggles that African Americans had to deal with on a daily basis. Hughes wrote “I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes (p. 1038)” This is a huge contradiction compared to how Hurston views the treatment of African Americans. She was a happy unconcerned person that never saw an issue among races, unlike Hughes where this was one of his main concerns in his writing.

Zora Neale Hurston identified as a person of color since she grew up in a town where the only white people, she saw were the ones driving through on their way to Orlando. She never concerned herself with race and knew that what was on the inside really made the person themselves. Langston Hughes was on the other side of the spectrum. He saw the treatment of African Americans in the eyes of white people and wanted to bring awareness to that issue. Hurston is “too busy sharpening my oyster knife (p. 959)” to be concerned about the feelings or concerns of the people around her.

Anthropology gave an opportunity to Zora Neale Hurston to learn with appropriate methods. Her skills helped her to think differently, out of the box, during her research. Modern critics did not understand Zora and her train of thought. Many condemned her for wanting black people to fight for their rights but at this time they just whined and did their job. Spencer (2004) found “Dominant culture had certainly told her that the black folk she grew up with were poor, illiterate, submissive, and dependent and that their folkways represented unsophisticated, low culture” (p.17). She was not someone who divided people into classes and even if she was told about it she believed that people are quite self-sufficient who deserve more without looking at the class division and no matter what class a person is from. And it was anthropology that became the door to its further direction. She was accused of simplifying or exaggerating black culture. In her stories, she had a town of black people with own rules and where they respect themselves. She always had a message to something all her stories had a purpose and due to this the contribution of Zora Neale Hurston to gender, religion, masculinity and race was great. Zora Neale Hurston created everything in balance and all her characters in a positive way do everything. And even in spite of her social status, her skin color should have been plentiful. This was Zora Neale Hurston tactic. She admired male and their behavior and she grew up in family where she did not like Christian God. She was interested in Gods and she compared the relationship between male literature and female literature. Zora Hurston related to men and women which she created.

Neale had a political place and she worked in political period when black society was considered as a low class. Many black writers thought and supported the ideology that black people themselves in the distant past brought this problem upon themselves and were themselves to blame for it. There was a fight with whites because of racism. The struggle is within blacks even when some blamed others. Black people were also divided as black elites and the poor. And it was the black elites who supported the whites in their ideas and they didn’t give poor black people the right to anything. In this article author compared Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright, Wright, like Zora, wanted to destroy discrimination about black people. The author mentions that for Zora everything she wrote was based on her life experience. At that time, for Wright, the South meant frustration and pain. Richard, none of the parties did not bring alternatives or choice to him. Although Wright and Hurston shared similar views in this respect their political point of view was very different. She thought that the concept between black and white people is different. She had a view of black people life and Zora wanted achieve equality between two classes. All her works were by her own experience.

This resource describes the twentieth century and changes in this period. It was during these times that there were all these stereotypes about femininity and masculinity, how a woman should behave, what she should do. And another main thing understands religion and how people treated it. Zora herself is equal to such qualities as men have that is, some of their skills she wants for herself. The author mentions her conflict with her father that she did not want to be just a helpless little girl and she did not like it. The contribution of Zora Neale Hurston to gender, religion, masculinity and race. In turn, the personification of men is sexuality and strength. Religion and masculinity in her opinion were very different while the Church demands something quite different and masculinity in literature is something else. From an early age she was allowed to read books about religion and this was very different from what she thought afterwards. It was her interest in religion that drew her to Voodoo and Haiti. How people in this country perceive Voodoo. She admired male and their behavior and she grew up in family where she did not like Christian God. She was interested in Gods and she compared relationship between male literature and female literature.

Mules and men is a part Zora Hurston research. It was through this book that she spoke about the role of women and how they suffer. How white men humiliated and raped black women using them as toys. She wanted to reach out and she was talking about hoodoo. Let’s go back to Haiti and Jamaica as the beginning of everything was hoodoo and all this was to help them. The birth of women and all equality. She had a survey on female empowerment and hoodoo. Mental and physical strength of a person Zora is looking for these aspects in all women who want to help and hoodoo in this beginning. Mental and physical strength of a person Zora Neale Hurstone is looking for these aspects in all women who want to help and hoodoo in this beginning. This is how people could balance their inner selves. The world is a place where everyone plays this kind of ideology in hoodoo. A place where everything is balanced and good. Zora Neale established the beginning of African Hoodoo rely on Moses story. And the vision of this story principle of female empowerment. Female started to know better own role in own society.

The history of Voodoo and his root. Neale Hurston said that voodoo is a religion of all nations and look like paganism. Through anthropology, Zora Hurston was able to find ways to study Haitians and Jamaica. She went south and started her journey and started her research. And at first she was afraid and stopped her research for a while but then she came back. Neale Hurston also mentioned zombies in her stories and claimed to have seen them. She wanted to be in the middle between anthropology and literature and was going to find an approach to different readers so that they would understand. Even her voodoo books she wanted to write that way. Zora Neale Hurston travelled in South and goddess Erzulie of feminine which was new for her. She was a source for female power and through this Zora conveyed the significance of black women poets. It was hard for her to go back and ask to go back to her work. And it was in learning voodoo that she saw her aspects that helped her finish it. She had breaks but she kept it up. Zora Neale Hurston likes voodoo and wanted to humanize and herself.

Anthropological survey on folklore and Haiti by Hurston. She returned again and again to Haiti and Jamaica. And it’s more about skin color to stop it. This Chapter describes how her research took place. All her reports to sponsors. And return to Haiti. It also refers to Boas and his attitude towards Zora. About the difficulties of getting funding for her research. Zora close to Haiti and where was telling about new bride whom prepared old women that she can pleasure in sexual contact. She discusses sex and attitude. She didn’t like the anthropologist’s attitude toward women, though she couldn’t say anything. And that there was polygamy in Jamaica. She wanted to stop class division and relied mainly on each story, Zora had a special purpose and concept. Zora Neal was not a materialist, and taking up one study she was drawn to it and she wrote about the African culture of black people who wanted justice or just to be on an equal footing with white people. They tried to whiten themselves and their descendants these problems and her stories always highlighted this. She mostly talked about research and polygamy in Jamaica and about zombies in Haiti. Finally, there about other women anthropologists who back to Haiti were.