Zora Neale Hurston Research Paper

The Life of Zora Neale Hurston Zora Neale Hurston was born in Notasulga, Alabama, on January 15, 1891. She was a very famous writer not only in her time, but still to this day she is praised for the things she wrote. Her writings were very distinct from other African American writers of her time and there is thought to be many reasons for that. She moved to a pure African American community in Eatonville, Florida at a very young age. This was thought to be one of the things that differentiated her from other African American writers in her time. Growing up in that community provided her with a sense of independence, freedom and confidence unknown to many during that time period and it was apparent from her writing. At age thirteen her mother died and two weeks later she had to move out of her childhood home. According to the UCF archive Anna Lillios said, “Hurston calls the years, from 1904-14, her “haunted years,” because her life was so dismal.” This was a very traumatic time in her life and is thought to be another thing that separated her from other writers. She had to learn a new type of independence where she would have to bounce from home to home and take care of

When she was there she attended parties with other important African American writers. This also exposed her to new people and new experiences unfamiliar to her beforehand and they too influenced her writing and were unfamiliar to her writing style which made her a unique writer. According to USF Exploring Florida, “Her writing was the first time black folk in the South were presented as normal people—not downtrodden by prejudice, not victims of racism.” This may have had something to do with her upbringing. In the town she grew up in African Americans were not discriminated because they were the only ones that made up the community which caused her to write about African Americans as equal people which was uncommon in that time