Framed story about Janie Crawford living in Florida in the 1920's-1930's. Janie tells her friend Phoeby about her marital exploits - she was married three times and tried to murder one of her husbands.

The use of dialect! I will never forget my friends from high school - all suburban white boys - affecting the black dialect from the 1930's South. "I'm so hongry. Tony don' feeeed me!" Hehehe...awesome stuff. As an anthropologist, Hurston would have known about how important linguistics are to the identity of a people or subgroup. Her use of dialect sets the characters apart. Although this has brought some criticism, I believe it gives them importance in their own right.




As usual I am also immensely interested in the treatment of Southern politics and culture.

Recommend it to everyone! And I have. And they have all enjoyed it.

I believe the credit belongs to Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, for "discovering" Zora Neale Hurston, the preeminent woman writer of the Harlem Renaissance. Although well-educated and well-published as an anthropologist and writer, Hurston was largely forgotten for decades. Her resurgence has put her back onto the English class syllabi of high school seniors and college students across the nation.

I think it is incredibly important to beef up our literary canon with works of minorities and women, and Hurston deserves a position in the canon not only because of her status but also because of her talent.

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Created Feb 26, 2002 at 6:28am • Submit your own review...