Zora Neale Hurston is arguably one of the most notable and best writers to come out of the Harlem Renaissance. There are two main features of Hurston’s writing that set her apart from the other writers of the Harlem Renaissance – her willingness to accurately portray humanity and the dialectal speech of many African-American characters. The culmination of these traits in her writing leads to the distinct tone of a much more genuine literature than many of us have become accustomed to. Recently, we praised poets for their ability to be “raw” and “genuine;” Hurston although writing in a different genre accomplishes the same feelings and goal.
The Norton biography notes that Hurston fought with the American great Langston Hughes over the portrayal of black characters and a black writer’s purpose. Hughes thought that African-American literature should “uplift” the race, portraying African-American characters only as good. This type of portrayal would obviously create a mis-anthropic view of African-Americans and more specifically humanity (NAAL, 1701). Hurston, likely because of her strong upbringing, believed that the African-American race was already “uplifted” and wrote in a way that portrayed all her characters as “good and bad, strong and weak” (NAAL, 1701). The willingness toward portrayal of the bad is readily, and humorously, seen in The Eatonville Anthology.
However, the depth of the characters both good and bad is much greater in The Gilded Six-Bits. Joe is a loving husband, but he is allowed to be angry and stay angry for a stretch of time. Missie May is a loving wife who cheats on her husband and is allowed to go through many emotions from shame, sadness and grief. The spectrum of emotions allows the characters to develop depth and become much more realistic. It would have been easy for Hurston to succumb to the pressure of one-dimensional characters and not allow hardship and sin to enter the lives of her characters. Without such a spectrum of emotion, hardship, and sin, the forgiveness in the end of The Gilded Six-Bits would have been something to take lightly. Rather, Joe’s willingness to forgive Missie May and return their lives to normal is a blessing not only to Missie May, but the reader as well. By allowing ourselves to deny depravity through showing only one-dimensional characters, we also deny the beauty of grace and forgiveness. Hurston’s willingness to show life as it is, rather than as it should be creates a more “genuine” and “raw” form of prose than Hughes was advocating for, and this rawness makes her literature even better.
Hurston was not only genuine in her emotional and active portrayal of her characters, but also in their speech. Hurston studied anthropology and was even granted a fellowship to study African-American storytelling and dialect (NAAL, 1700-1). It was this work, knowledge and interest that led Hurston to write her characters’ speech dialectally (NAAL, 1700-1). To be honest, the first time I had to read Hurston it was this dialectal speech that turned me off from her and made me irritated. However, as I have grown, Hurston’s writing has grown on me. Dialects and accents are not only an African-American occurrence, we all have them. I do. You do. None of us speak exactly as we write. Hurston’s choice to add this dimension to her characters gives them more depth and reality. You can hear the emotion in Missie May and Joe’s voices when they are flirting, fighting and everything in between. This type of realism would not have been possible if they had spoken as though they were writing an essay, with perfect pronunciation, diction and grammar.
Not long ago blogs were written in praise of Moore’s ability to write raw and genuine poetry. If we are able to unashamedly praise an author for putting herself ‘out there’ by writing raw poetry, the same should be done for prose. Hurston writes beautiful raw prose, allowing her characters to truly be and demonstrate humanity. The Gilded Six-Bit shows characters who have a range of emotion, make mistakes and speak as though they are real. It is these types of characters that readers will learn from and grow, not the one-dimensional singularly orientated type of characters.
Also on a side note, who else would fight with Langston Hughes over his ideas of ‘blackness’? This woman deserves some serious props for that one.
I agree with your side note that Hurston deserves some serious props for standing up to great poets like Hughes for the sake of writing poetry and prose in the way she felt was right. I applaud her for not showing favoritism or a bias in presenting blacks in a positive or even overly sympathetic light. She presents blacks as they are, just like any other human: flawed and in desperate need of forgiveness and grace.
ReplyDeleteReally helpful reading here Cyndi. Like you I found her dedication to honest characterization intriguing. It is also good to point out the differences between her prose and some of the poetry of her contemporaries that we have read. While they are both valid forms of art, I think we tend to imagine more honesty or emotion in poetry, but that is definitely not the case.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't explain why I enjoyed reading "The Gilded Six-Bits" all that well until I read this, but I think you have a point with the two-dimensional characters that are allowed to feel on the page without their emotions being named or forced.
ReplyDeleteI think that we respond to what is genuine in any form, especially when it is well expressed, as it is in Hurston's writing. I also appreciated "The Gilded Six-Bits," and I think you are exactly right about depravity, grace, and forgiveness. When we face up to what we really are, we are far less likely to box God into church or Bible class. The affirmation of total depravity is the affirmation of our intense need for Christ's redemption. Seeing the realistic characters in Hurston's writing had the power to remind me of these connected affirmations, even if that was not her intention.
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