life

There were many events in Zora Neal Hurston’s life that helped shaped the book, __Their Eyes Were Watching God__. It is not clear when she was born because she always lied about her age but it is estimated that she was born January 7, 1891. At the age of three her family moved to Eatonville Florida. Where her father became mayor of the city, it was the first African American community in America. Since it was an all black community she felt comfortable and never felt discriminated against. In the book Jody who was really close to her became the mayor of Eatonville and in her real life her father as the mayor. Her mother died in 1904, and Zora was rejected by her father and his new wife so she was bounced around at the age of fourteen was forced to mature and care for herself she left Eatonville and worked as a maid. This relates to the book because in __Their Eyes Were Watching God__ her mother abandoned her and her grandmother cared for her.

She went to Howard University and received a B.A. in anthropology from Barnard College and then went onto college at Columbia University in 1928. She frequently did field research recording the life and folklores of African Americans, she started in Harlem then she went throughout the rural south. This affected how she was able to skillfully write this book using many different dialects and represented different parts and different cultures of the South and America in general. In 1925 she moved to the New York with 1.50 and she knew absolutely no one. During the 1920’s the Harlem Renaissance was booming. She became part of the New Negro Renaissance Movement. In a way this is like how Jodie tried to have a loud voice and get her word out in Eatonville.

She married Herbert Sheen on May 19, 1927, but she always put her career first. So their marriage did not last long she remarried several more times, this completely relates to Janie in the book who marries three times throughout the novel. It seems that Zora Neal Hurston wrote many of her own accounts into her novels with slight to drastic twists. In January 1932 Hurston was working with the Creative Literature Department of Rollins College at Winter Park, Florida. She wished to produce a program in honor the African Americans.She attempted to get her short stories published for many years but they were rejected again and again. They were finally published in the 1930’s and 1940’s. She died without any money in 1973, in Fort Piece, Florida.