Hurston's Curveball

Hurston’s Curveball Some writers are almost as curious as the crew of the Mystery Machine, constantly looking for a way to wow readers. Zora Neale Hurston was no different, and a prime example. In her book, Their Eyes Were Watching God Janie Crawford, Nannie, Tea Cake, Joe Starks, and Logan Killicks made this book something special. The story that rotates around the deep south while making fun of its racial ideas was a stand out of its time. Zora Neale Hurston’s writing is both a reflection of and a departure from the ideas of the Harlem Renaissance.

The Jim Crow Laws were seen in this book, and as a part of the Harlem Renaissance, were made fun of. “Each and every white man think he know all de GOOD darkies already. He don’t need tuh know no mo’.(p. 172)” Tea Cake is forced into cleaning up the dead from a hurricane and was discussing the treatment from the white enforcers while also making fun of them. This shows that Hurston was not afraid to make fun of white people and the idea of racial superiority. Hurston was not only making fun of whites and showing the culture of blacks, but also embracing southern culture that would disappoint many of the writers

These radical ideas are still what can be used as a refusal point to that same claim though since many of them wouldn’t have even been taken seriously at the time, and if they couldn’t have been taken seriously then they couldn’t have been very useful to the Harlem Renaissance cause. The argument for the involvement in the Harlem Renaissance is still relevant because of the way that Hurston portrayed them, as a progression of life. This is important to remember because it happened at a time when these were controversial ideas but were still shown with the twist of them still happening in the deep south but by common black people who showed it being a functioning