Modern Society In The 1920's By Zora Neale Hurston

Throughout American history, society has changed. Public opinion changes, as the surrounding environment changes. One prime example of this drastic change was the 1920s and the 1930’s. These two decades show how a culture’s political, social, and cultural life can change within years.

After moving to the Harlem neighborhood, Zora Neale Hurston became friends with the famous African-American writer, Langston Hughes, and she also made relationships with Countee Cullen. After to moving to this neighborhood her apartment became and was a popular spot for gatherings among friends. While living in this area, she acquired various literary successes. She was also able to go to and acquire a scholarship to Barnard College, where she pursued the subject of anthropology, which is the study of humanity, and she also studied Franz Boas, who was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of anthropology. Furthermore, she returned to Florida in order to collect African-American folk tales that will, later on, would be published as

Zora Neale Hurston was born on January 7, 1891 in Notasulga, Alabama. She was the fifth of eight children to John and Lucy Ann Hurston. Her father was a preacher and her mother was a schoolteacher. When she was 3, her family moved to Eatonville, Florida, one of the few all-black towns in the United States at the time. In 1918, Hurston began her college education at Howard University.

Richard Wright’s justified critique is that the novel utilized minstrel techniques to entertain and appease a white audience. He also noted it lacked theme or thought. While some might claim he is incorrect, it can be shown that Hurston’s novel used minstrel

This anecdote helped us understand how Hurston's experiences in New York City influenced her writing and her sense of

Find Yourself “Those that don’t got it, can’t show it, those that got it, can’t hide it” (¨Google bestows author Zora Neale Hurston...¨). If you are genuinely passionate about something, it is going to show without effort, but if it does not, you do not have anything to show. After attending a variety of universities and colleges, she went to Howard University, where she began writing short stories and received a scholarship. Furthermore, she went ahead and transferred to Barnard College. Before she transferred she published her first story called, ¨John Redding Goes to Sea¨. In 1936 Zora was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for collecting many folklore around the world, especially in Hadi.

The Roaring Twenties, a time of economic prosperity and modernity swept many Americans into an affluent but unfamiliar “consumer society.” But with every high, comes a low and at the turn of the decade came the stock market crash ending the luxurious era as we know it. Thus, began the completely contrasted age known as the Dirty Thirties. These twenty years brought forward new inventions such as radars, jazz music, movies with sound all while the Modernism movement continued to transpire and thrive. Great works such as The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, were famous modernist novels written thirteen years apart which showed the dreams and aspirations of different individuals in the

Zora Neale Hurston in the essay, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” explains that despite the cultural backgrounds, everyone is essentially the same. Hurston supports her explanation by comparing the way she grew up compared to white people. The author’s purpose is to inform a multi-racial audience in order to decrease racial tension and increase unity and awareness. Hurston talk about racial identity and her idea that being black is the same as being white, except for a few cultural differences.

Men were labeled as the authoritative figure in a majority of households in 1920. Men were pressured to work as long and hard as possible during the weekend due to the mother not having a source of income. A father’s responsibility was to make the income. Commonly, the father was usually not present to his family until the late hours of the night during the weekday. Leaving at the brisk of dawn and returning past dinner time, it was a long and strenuous day for men.

As a direct result of this belief, she feels hatred towards Tea Cake because he is a common black man, and tries to convince Janie to leave him for her brother. Through this, Hurston puts forth Tea Cake’s experience of discrimination based on his race as a microcosmic example of what takes place in American society. Part of Mrs. Turner’s views come from the fact that “it was distressing to emerge from her inner temple and find these black desecrators howling with laughter before the door” (145). For her, black people are too rambunctious and too foolish; she fails to recognize that the black people she knows simply have a different way of life than her, and, as a result, becomes prejudiced. Hurston demonstrates that racist whites like Mrs. Turner meet a few black people, decide that they are too loud, careless, or whatever trait they dislike, and characterize the entire race based on the traits of these few people.

One major theme authors universally write their stories around concern the power of human relationships. Though writers may take different paths to communicate this, the strength that comes from these unique connections that exist between individuals resonates with everyone. Authors clearly articulate through a myriad of rhetorical devices that maintaining relationships is a fundamental part in personal growth and allows for a stronger sense of self. In finding companionship and comradery. people become capable of evolving and arriving at better understandings of who they are.

During this time period, Whites did not see African Americans intellectually equal. Hurston demonstrates this by stating how blacks lack confidence, until night time when their master is gone, they be themselves. In the book it states, “The sun

In order to have a utopia, all classes of people would need to be able to work together as a whole, which has been an endless conflict of the

People say nothing is perfect for a reason. I believe Utopian Societies can not exist in the modern world today. There are some studies that try to figure if a Utopian Society would work, the study came out as negative The first reason is: Most of the people secretly do not like the rules “I think i'd like to be a birth mother” Lily said..“Three years ”

Utopia is characterized as an immaculate or perfect society; that laws and social conditions are made for everybody that there is no segregation between the general population and government, is just a perfect spot that individuals could live cheerful for the rest of their lives. However, an approach as society has never existed or can exist since individuals are altogether different, and as an aftereffect of those distinctions is hard to make a perfect world in a general public. For example, Adolf Hilter attend to utopia in Germany by "the control of basic industry was the key to the control of man, and controlling man was the key to creating utopia"(A.E. Samaan 120) Although Hilter was able to get control in Germany, he was not creating