'Making a Way Out of No Way"': Zora Neale Hurston"'s Hidden Discourse of Resistance"u201d explores how Hurston used techniques she derived from the trickster tradition of African American folk culture in her narratives in order to resist and undermine the racism of the dominant discourse found in popular literature published during her lifetime. Critics have condemned her perceived willingness to use racist stereotypes in her work in order to pander to a white reading audience. This project asserts that Hurston did, indeed, don a "u201cmask of minstrelsy"u201d to play into her reading public"'s often racist expectations in order to succeed as an academic and as a creative writer. At the same time, however, she crafted her narratives in a way that destabilized those expectations through use of sometimes subtle and sometimes blatant points of resistance. In this way, she was able to participate in a system that was rigged against her, as a woman and as an African American, by playing into the expectations of her audiences for economic and professional advantages while simultaneously undermining aspects of those expectations through rhetorical "u201cwinks,"u201d exaggeration, sarcasm, and other forms of humor that enabled her to stay true to her personal values. While other scholars have examined Hurston"'s discourse of resistance, this project takes a different approach by placing Hurston"'s material in relation to the publishing climate at the time. Chapter One examines Mules and Men in the context of the revisions Hurston made to her scholarly work to transform her collection of folktales into a cohesive book marketed to a popular reading audience. Chapter Two focuses on Hurston"'s often-maligned anthropological travel book, Tell My Horse, as it forms a counter-narrative to the sensational and surreal travelogue by William Seabrook, The Magic Island. Chapter Three analyzes Their Eyes Were Watching God alongside DuBose Heyward"'s Porgy to demonstrate how Hurston resists the dominant narrative of black womanhood by creating a strong and self-affirming female role model. / Elizabeth A. Kalos-Kaplan
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_50348 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Contributors | Kalos-Kaplan, Elizabeth A. (author), Smith, Felipe (Thesis advisor), School of Liberal Arts English (Degree granting institution) |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | electronic |
| Rights | Embargo |
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