Zora Neale Hurston with Patricia Brown | Black Intellectuals Series #4

0:00 their eyes are watching god is one of the first texts uh to explore um this journey for voice black women’s voice um and i’m not just talking about audible voice but voice in a patriarchal society [Music]

0:26 hi this is tony williams senior fellow at bri and we are pleased to bring you another episode of scholar talk series on black intellectuals and the african-american experience for this episode we’re honored to have scholar patricia brown who is going to discuss zora neale hurston and the guiding question for this series

0:47 is what contribution did this person make to understanding the black experience in america now by way of introduction dr patricia brown is a professor of english at isuza pacific university where she teaches african-american literature american fiction the harlem renaissance and women’s religious autobiographies among

1:07 several other courses and her scholarship includes the historical implications of the african-american experience in relation to the broader study of american literature also tony morrison’s novels and african-american women’s responses to oppression patricia thank you very much for joining us thank you for having me great and thank you you know zora neale

1:29 hurston’s their eyes were watching god you know fortunately it’s on a lot of reading lists and high schools and college and and and just a perennial bestseller classic really um and and rightfully so so i’m i’m really honored to have you on to to talk about this sort of seminal and very important novel

1:50 of the 20th century and and of a a black female uh author so uh thank you again for joining us yes thank you for having me again okay good um so just generally can you please start maybe by telling us a little bit about zoro neal hurston and especially maybe within the the little

2:10 broader context of the harlem renaissance uh yeah um hurston she like many others gravitated to um to harlem during the 1920s for the harlem renaissance the explosion of um literary arts visual arts and

2:32 the various arts and so she’s a a major uh contributor to the harlem renaissance um she uh was a great writer um often entered many of her short stories in the um the journal contests um that were popular

2:55 during the holland renaissance um she was very good friends with langston hughes who’s a prominent artist of the harlem renaissance as well um she was born in edenville florida um which is you know the fictional setting for um part of

3:17 their eyes were watching god uh evil florida was actually the first all-black incorporated town um in america um so yeah she her mother died when she was 13 years old and so she had to grow up really fast but her mother was a significant influen

3:38 influence on her life um often encouraged her to be ambitious and inquisitive telling her to jump at the sun which is a common um motto and motif in um in hurston’s uh writing and what scholars um uh focused on um she eventually um went on to

4:03 morgan academy a high school division of morgan state university and then enrolled in howard university so briefly married went back to college at bernard in columbia where she studied anthropology

4:24 which influenced her her writing quite a bit in and as she went back to the south to study folklore traditions and black folklore which appears quite often in much of her um in her writings so uh unfortunately

4:47 well let me say this um she and langston hughes had a great writing um a great relationship until um they had disagreement about uh a play that they produced together called mule bone and um they sort of fell out over the creative control of the play and um sort of with

5:08 their separate ways but they uh share the same financial um hatred um charlotte mason and um but meal bone is a it was a great play um but it’s kind of sad that they um didn’t you know produce other pieces together but at any rate um

5:28 she um she was a prominent member of the harlem renaissance and um her most notable um contribution uh is um their eyes were watching god her novel um toward the uh decline of the harlem renaissance and this this is published

5:49 in the late 1930s which is the decline of the harlem renaissance as most things were declining during the 1930s as a result of the great depression and so she had sort of a sad ending to her life really died penniless um she um was buried in an unmarked grave

6:12 and uh in florida and pretty much lost to us um she died in 1960 and uh alice walker uh revived her and brought her work and life back to us and so we are thankful to uh alice walker who is the author of the famous um novel

6:33 the color purple and um so alice walker went and found her grave site and put a proper headstone on her unmarked grave um and read something like zora nilhursten a genius of the south

6:54 and um yeah so that was her life uh so she was pretty much lost to us for about nearly 15 years after her death it wasn’t until about 1973 that alice walker sort of revived her career

7:16 very fascinating detail i didn’t know a lot of that so so thank you for uh for providing that context and and in her writings you know person’s focus really seems to be on examining and definitely celebrating black expression culture creativity really resiliency uh can you comment on that

7:37 um yeah indeed um as i said before one key note is um her study of anthropology and her love for um black uh folklore um so she went back and she would just sit on the porches of uh people in

7:57 these southern towns and listen to their folklore and so that black expression of storytelling she experienced and you see that in much of her writing she said that people would just sort of sit on porches and um pass pictures of their thoughts

8:21 around for people to see and so that the pictures of your thoughts that’s the storytelling so it wasn’t just the the content of the story but it was the art of uh oral story telling that uh fascinated kirsten and so she brings that to

8:41 this black expression so you had to be a performer of storytelling and which is significant in their eyes were watching god with janie wanting to participate in sort of the storefront um discussion of the guys but of course her

9:03 um her husband wouldn’t allow that but that was very important so it’s sort of like a stage performance you you have a good story but you have to deliver it well as well so that is one of her contributions to black expression is the ability to to have a great story

9:24 but beyond that to be able to deliver a great story great and how does this rich examination of black culture and folklore as you’re saying i really find its ultimate expression and that really great and rich diversity of characters we encounter in their eyes we’re watching god

9:45 well we look at um when we look at janie our protagonist in the novel uh we um we see someone who is searching for for voice and um when when we talk about voice well let me back up a little bit um and

10:07 talk a little bit about uh womanism and because many scholars have suggested that um uh hurston’s uh is one of the first womanists artists um uh for african-american um

10:28 uh literature and womanism is a a a term that was made popular by going back to alice walker very similar similar to uh feminism but it’s different from feminism in that it addresses the specific concerns of

10:50 black women that is of being double minorities especially during the early 20th century and so uh feminism really spoke to the needs of white women uh issues that were not necessarily the same as black women’s

11:11 issues and so womanism uh the womanism concept it incorporates uh men and not isolate that isolates them into this fight for wholeness um as alice walker said um

11:31 womanism is to feminism as purple is to lavender and so much uh deeper and richer for the african-american experience and so we see this womanist feel of the novel uh coming through but then

11:51 also um their eyes are watching god is one of the first texts uh to explore um this journey for voice black women’s voice um and i’m not just talking about audible voice but voice in a patriarchal

12:12 society um voice is defined as sort of like this independent opinion and thought and the ability to verbally and non-verbally express those opinions and thoughts uh voices uh empowerment to be self-reliant and dependent independent

12:34 um voice is self-defined personality and self-defined roles and so we see in uh their eyes were watching god janie’s search for voice um and as voice is defined um as i just noted in their eyes we’re watching god uh if

12:55 you can maybe even uh just dig a little deeper into how uh in in the novel uh she expresses uh that that woman’s freedom uh that that journey of self-discovery that expressionism in that very compelling main character gene yeah um certainly um

13:17 we can look at um janie’s experience um through her three marriages right um and it’s it’s it’s really like a christ-like journey um her bill don’s roman um as she goes from the the um the imagery of this pear tree

13:39 experience her ideal of what um love looks like and so if you you can see the death burial and resurrection of jd through these three um marriages so starting with her first um marriage um to logan

14:00 is the death of her uh her pear tree experience i mean she says that you know she sat around waiting for love to happen because love is is forced upon her um and um by her grandmother um and uh and then you see that she realizes that love

14:21 uh doesn’t happen in that marriage and so she just sort of sits down and just waits um to become a a mature woman and and then joe comes along joe starks and so she thinks okay uh leaving is what she has to do and she goes on to this marriage um uh with

14:43 promises of uh grandeur and having love and having that pear tree experience um but we see uh with joe starks he doesn’t want that so you see he he silences her uh when uh he starts this town as mayor of um

15:04 eatonville the the people ask um the mayor can we hear a word from your from your wife uh who’s janie and he says no i didn’t marry her for any speech making uh i’m the big voice and so literally he buries her voice um and um

15:25 so she you have the death of the pear tree experience with her first husband and then the burial of her voice with her second husband but then um you tea cake comes along the younger guy and um he represents the resurrection

15:46 uh of her what voice means in its uh full state he says you have meat on your head you can use that and that means you know you have a brain so he teaches her how to play checkers and you know do various things um go fishing um whatever she wants to do he says you have good meat on your head

16:07 so um joe starks her her second husband was constantly telling her what she could not do and so tea cake uh comes along and tells her what she can do and um and so she tk really functions as almost like a christ-like figure to her she has a lot of um biblical imagery

16:28 when she talks about him uh he’s not a perfect character um but he is uh someone who helps her discover this this full range of voice you know that independent opinion and thought and the ability to express the imp independent um um voice and opinion and the empowerment

16:50 to be self-reliant and independent and just self-defined personality because um before her grandmother and her first husband and then her second husband and his the entire community defined for her what her identity would be but when tk comes

17:10 along she she learns that you know she needs to define and so that’s why she has to leave eatonville um so you see her bildungsroman this journey motif of the death and burial and then finally the resurrection and really these three marriages serve sort of like the holy trinity really i’d like

17:30 to see you know you know like the father son and the holy spirit they all work together um to complete uh janie’s development and her story i i hope you your magnificent description just then really i you know um urges every single uh viewer to uh to

17:52 read this magnificent book um it really is great um and so my last question is simply what was zora contribution to understanding the black experience in america well this particular one um i would say um her contribution was um understanding

18:15 black women’s uh position um and uh their double minority status and uh and how it’s so unique and what they have to fight against um i love the imagery of black women as mules of the world which

18:36 uh sort of defines women as the lowest black women as the lowest rung uh on the ladder and um other writers black writers have picked up on black women being the mules of the world or fighting against being mules of the world tony morrison does it in um the

18:57 bluest eye and others and so this is the the concept of the mule of the world it comes from uh janie’s grandmother uh who raises her uh tells her that she doesn’t want janie to be a mule of the world and so this is what um um gran uh her grandmother says to her

19:17 she says honey the white man is the ruler over everything so far as i’ve been able to find out so the white man throw down the load he tell the man to pick it up he pick it up because he have to but he don’t tote it he hand it to his women folks the woman is the mule

19:37 of the world so far as i can see and so you have this metaphorical load that the white man has he doesn’t tote that he doesn’t tote it because he’s he’s superior he doesn’t have to tote it he doesn’t pass it to the second person under him which is the white woman because she’s too precious to tote it

19:59 so he hands it to the next person who is the black man he has to take that load whatever that metaphorical load is and because he is um he’s lower than the white uh man and uh white woman he takes it but he doesn’t tote it uh because he has someone under him

20:20 he gives it to the black woman to tote so she becomes the mule of the world and there’s a lot of imagery associated with that mule of the world being a beast of burden uh strong uh enduring a lot sort of stubborn um sometimes i run down and over uh overworked uh bearing the load of everyone

20:41 um uh hurston said i’m sorry um uh tony morrison said at the bluest eye said everyone was in the position to give them orders white men said do this white women said give me that uh black men said come here uh lay down et cetera the only person that they need not take orders from were

21:01 themselves and their children so um hurston starts with this being the mule level of the world black women being the mule of the metaphorical mule of the world and why we have to climb our way out of this um lowest rung on the ladder and we’ve been doing well

21:22 with that patricia thank you very much for joining us okay yes thank you and thank you all for joining us on this episode of scholar talks please check out our other installments of black intellectuals and the african-american experience our previous series on the cold war and the presidency and also our upcoming series

21:43 on pivotal battles in american history thank you