ZORA NEALE HURSTON
THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD Story behind Their Eyes Were Watching God Hurston wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God In only seven weeks while doing anthropological research in Haiti. ... They felt as though Hurston’s view of how blacks in the South were unrealistic. ... Zora Neale Hurston’s Life Zora Neale Hurston was born in the almost all black town of Eatonville, Florida. ... Hurston returned to Eatonville after college for anthropological field study that influenced her later output in fiction as well as in folklore. ... Hurston wrote that being black and being female was the average thing to be. ... Later in life Hurston experienced health problems, and she died impoverished and unrecognized by the literary community. Hurston was unwilling to acknowledge that which came before her or tradition that tried to dictate a life for her within limits she didn’t set for herself. Writing style Zora Neale Hurston’s study of the folklore culture of African Americans led her to record the wonderful oral culture of stories and songs. ... In Zora’s writings she makes her characters so human and real it is hard to not feel their love, hate, and mourns. ... Harlem Renaissance influence Zora Neale Hurston’s attitude toward her writings, her studies and her life placed her among the writers and artists of the Harlem Renaissance. ... Zora Neale Hurston was a product of the Harlem Renaissance and one of its most extraordinary writers. The Harlem Renaissance fostered Hurston’s writings but they extended far beyond its themes and political agenda.