Moses, Man of the Mountain (Masterplots II: Women’s Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Zora Neale Hurston
- First Published: 1939
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Social criticism
- Time of Work: Biblical times (allegorically, the whole sweep of African American history)
- Setting: Egypt and the wilderness (allegorically, the United States)
- Principal Characters: Moses, Mentu, Pharaoh, Miriam, Aaron, Zipporah, Jethro
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: African Americans
- Locales: Egypt
Form and Content
Moses, Man of the Mountain retells the Exodus story of the Hebrew Bible as an allegory for African American history and culture. While keeping to the broader brush-strokes of the biblical account (from the Torah books of Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), Hurston places the Moses story in a much broader mythological, theological, and political context. By doing so, she creates her own Moses legend, unique in its structure and content. As she asserts in her introduction to the novel, Moses legends are not confined to the biblical literature of Judaism and...
[The entire page is 3188 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
See Also
