Zora Neale Hurston sets most of her work in or near the all-black town of Eatonville, Florida,¹ which she uses to portray lifestyles of rural African Americans by showing folk customs and beliefs, communal attitudes, and voodoo practices.² Hurston's choice of Eatonville as setting reflects one of her major artistic philosophies, central to which is her need to celebrate African American culture. As she explains in her well-known essay “How It Feels to Be Colored Me,” she realized that she was black when she was thirteen and left Eatonville to attend school in Jacksonville. Even so, she says,

I am not tragically colored. There is not great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world—I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.

(153)

Hurston's proclamation helps explain why much of the conflict in her works does not stem directly from relations between blacks and whites in the sense expressed by protest writers such as Richard Wright and Chester Himes, who use naturalism as a literary mode to expose the ills of racism.

Although critics initially objected to Hurston's works because she failed to take a political stance that focused on the plight of blacks in a racist society, during the 1970s, her works were rediscovered and fresh critical interpretations pointed out social and political concerns she addresses.³ As these more recent assessments demonstrate, amidst portraits of rural African Americans and celebrations of blackness, Hurston frequently characterizes women who defy traditional western (white) literature and myths that depict consequences for women who step outside gender-biased social roles.⁴ The large majority of the criticism focuses on her novels, her folklore studies, and her autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road. However, in addition to her novels and folklore studies, Hurston was also an avid short story writer. Although her short stories were never collected during her lifetime, they originally appeared in distinguished magazines and newspapers and garnered her prestigious awards. In her short stories, as in her other works, Hurston depicts strong women who develop independence in spite of oppressive social conditions, particularly those influenced by a politics of gender- and ethnic-biased economics.⁵ Hurston's characterizations of women defy traditional ideology that encourages women to remain oppressed, especially in terms of their economic status.

One of the sketches in The Complete Stories of Zora Neale Hurston, “The Eatonville Anthology,” gives a brief overview of the characters, lifestyles, and tone used throughout the collection of sketches and short stories. Representing folktales and customs of the Eatonville community, “The Eatonville Anthology” fictionally reveals what Hurston reports from a nonfictional perspective in “My Birthplace,” chapter 1 of her autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road:

So you will have to know something about the time and place where I came from, in order that you may interpret the incidents and directions of my life.

I was born in a Negro town. I do not mean by that the black back-side of an average town. Eatonville, Florida, is, and was at the time of my birth, a pure Negro town—charter, mayor, council, town marshal and all. It was not the first Negro community in America, but it was the first to be incorporated, the first attempt at organized self-government on the part of Negroes in America.

(11)

In “The Eatonville Anthology,” Hurston gives condensed versions and variations of tales told fully in other stories and introduces characters who reappear throughout her stories and in some of her other works. As Robert E. Hemenway notes, “‘The Eatonville Anthology’ is the literary equivalent of Hurston's memorable performances at parties. The reader has the impression of sitting in a corner listening to anecdotes” (69). The sketch presents “pure Zora Neale Hurston: part fiction, part folklore, part biography, all told with great economy, an eye for authentic detail, and a perfect ear for dialect” (70).

As presented in The Complete Stories, “The Eatonville Anthology” provides a survey of themes and subjects and develops unity for all the stories and tales set in Eatonville. It becomes a sort of guide for reading the other stories in ways similar to the description of Eatonville in Hurston's autobiography. Most importantly, “The Eatonville Anthology” describes Eatonville as setting. Geographically, Eatonville sits next to Winter Park, an all-white city where upper-class northerners reside during the winter season. Many of the members of the Eatonville community work for the wealthy whites in Winter Park; thus, the “twin cities,” represent opposing degrees of wealth, ultimate economic disparity, and establish, as Kathryn Lee Seidel points out, “an economics of slavery” (172).

Implied in “The Eatonville Anthology,” one form of oppression Hurston demonstrates throughout the stories and tales set in Eatonville is the lack of economic opportunities for African Americans. Economic exploitation of underprivileged African Americans is apparent in “Drenched in Light,” “The Gilded Six-Bits,” “Sweat,” and “Black Death,” stories that also demonstrate gender-biased exploitation and oppression. “Drenched in Light” presents a young female protagonist whose oppression is based on gender, class, and ethnicity. Isis Watts lives with her maternal grandmother, who tries to teach her to act like a lady: “Grandma Potts felt no one of this female persuasion should … sit with the knees separated, ‘settin’ brazen' she called it; another was whistling, another playing with boys, neither must a lady cross her legs” (19). Also, as “the only girl in the family, of course she must wash the dishes” (19). Obviously, Isis is the victim of socially prescribed codes of conduct for females that force her to perform duties traditionally considered women's work. Isis violates these rules, for she sneaks a ride on a horse and whistles in defiance when Grandma Potts scolds her. However, just as Grandma Potts jumps to get a switch to spank her, her father comes home “and this excused the child from sitting for criticism” (19).

While “Drenched in Light” reveals feminist concerns, it also exposes problems created by an unequal distribution of wealth. The white lady who encounters Isis's grandmother wants to spare Isis a spanking so she asks, “You're not going to whip this poor little thing, are you?” (24). At first, the grandmother defends herself, explaining that Isis has ruined a tablecloth she cannot afford to replace. The white lady gives her a five dollar bill, says “the little thing loves laughter” (25), and asks whether Isis can accompany her to the hotel. Isis's grandmother agrees, telling her to behave herself while she is with the “white folks” (25). Significantly, Grandma Potts instructs Isis with “pride in her voice, though she strove to hide it” (25). Although her grandmother appears “proud” of her because the white lady deems her endearing, when readers consider the implied message concerning unequal distribution of wealth based on ethnicity, her “pride” demonstrates that in order to receive the five dollars, the grandmother must forgo authority and withhold from Isis retribution she strongly believes she deserves. No doubt Grandma Potts notices the condescending tone the white woman uses when she invites Isis to her hotel. She refers to her as a “little thing” and questions the grandmother's concern for Isis. Whether or not readers share the grandmother's notions of retribution, the more sonorous point is that Grandma Potts is both judged harshly for her treatment of Isis and forced because of economic need to act in a manner inconsistent with her convictions.

At the expense of her grandmother's authority, the white couple pay Isis to dance for them. Because of economic necessity, Grandma Potts allows Isis to accompany the white couple. Seeming never to revoke the punishments she imposes upon Isis, the grandmother must now relinquish her authority. Grandma Potts deems it inappropriate for Isis to use the tablecloth to dance in the parade watched by blacks, who do not pay Isis; but she judges it appropriate for her to use it to dance for whites, who do pay her. Obviously, the determining factor for whether Isis is allowed to frolic is economics. Hurston exposes the unequal distribution of wealth by illustrating opposing degrees of economic privilege: the Pottses can barely afford a tablecloth, but the white couple drives a Packard.

The title of the story, a phrase the white lady attributes to Isis, is ambiguous. “Drenched” has negative connotations, as though flooded, a term that might very well describe the white lady's generosity toward Isis's grandmother. Using the term “drenched,” Hurston implies that the money that privileged whites offer to economically disadvantaged blacks is “drenched” in provisions and stipulations. The set-up of the final scene exposes the economic system that obviously privileges whites: a white couple rides in a luxury car, and a white lady condescends to a black woman and offers money in exchange for control of her granddaughter. Significantly, the white woman is concerned with saving Isis from what she perceives is her grandmother's anger, not with watching her dance; thus, she is not paying to be entertained but to usurp the grandmother's authority and to reinforce her own power and status.

Both when Isis's father returns and the white woman manipulates Grandma Potts, Isis escapes retribution. While in the first instance Isis is spared with no consequence to anyone, in the second instance Grandma Potts sacrifices her domestic authority in order for Isis to be absolved: in other words, when the economically advantaged whites play a role in Isis's triumph, it is a pyrrhic victory for the grandmother. While the white man and woman usurp the grandmother's power, “they represent for Isis a critical opportunity for power and freedom” (Meisenhelder 7). Noting the significance of the white man telling his wife that she has been adopted by Isis (rather than implying that the couple has adopted Isis), Susan Meisenhelder says that Isis usurps the white couple's “power for her own purposes and exercises subtle control” (7). In Isis's situation, the story supports strong girls who will no doubt develop into women who refuse to adapt to sexist or racist stereotypes, but in Grandma Potts's situation, it criticizes a social system wherein justice becomes a commodity purchased by privileged whites at the expense of underprivileged blacks.

While “Drenched in Light” shows the plight of the economically disadvantaged in terms of hierarchies based on ethnicity, “The Gilded Six-Bits” points out problems of unequal distribution of wealth within the larger black community. The story reveals a young couple whose happy marriage is threatened when the newcomer Otis Slemmons moves to Eatonville and flaunts pretentious wealth. Unaware until near the end of the story that the gold Otis flashes is fake, Missie May and Joe believe that Otis is wealthy. While Joe feels inferior to what he perceives as a wealthy man, Missie May eventually is charmed by Otis's apparent wealth.

Joe describes Otis, who has moved from Chicago to open an ice cream parlor in Eatonville, to Missie May. He tells her about his economic status, but Missie May tells Joe that she is “satisfied wid [him] jes lak [he] is” (90). Joe feels the need to compete with Otis, but because he knows he cannot compete with him financially, he desires to triumph by “possessing” a pretty wife. He says he wants to take Missie May to the ice cream parlor because Otis “talkin' 'bout his pritty womens—Ah want 'im to see mine” (91). After Joe takes Missie May to the ice cream parlor to meet Otis, she tells him that she noticed the “heap uh gold on 'im” and says it would “look a whole heap better on [Joe]” (91). Joe's only response is to ask, “Where would a po' man lak me git gold money from?” (91). Later, the narrator says, “It was Saturday night once more before Joe could parade his wife in Slemmons' ice cream parlor again” (92). After their first visit to the ice cream parlor, Joe reminds Missie May of both Otis's wealth and his own poverty and says, “Ah'm satisfied de way Ah is. So long as Ah be yo' husband, Ah don't keer 'bout nothin' else” (91). Before Missie May's introduction to Otis, she claims to be satisfied; afterwards, Joe makes such claims. Ironically, instead of elevating his self-esteem by showing Otis his “pretty” wife, Joe may feel further threatened because Missie May admits that this is the first time she has seen gold and that she hopes to find some while walking home.

Particularly interesting about “The Gilded Six-Bits”'s treatment of gender is its implication that men might purchase women who remain at home engaged in unpaid labor. The insult Joe gives Otis when he discovers him in bed with Missie May implies that Otis is in bed with Missie May because his wealth entitles him such privilege. Joe insults not Otis's character but his economic status: “Git into yo' damn rags, Slemmons” (93), he says, as contrasted to his earlier assessment that Otis “got de finest clothes Ah ever seen on a colored man's back” (89). Likewise, Missie May's defense for having slept with Otis is that he had promised her gold money. After Missie May and Joe have sex, Joe puts under her pillow the half-dollar Otis had given Missie May to suggest “he could pay as well as Slemmons” (96). Upon realizing that Joe is not coming home, Missie May sees no need to sweep the porch, cook breakfast, or wash and starch, chores performed “for Joe” (94). If not to engage in these duties, she asks, “why get up?” (94). In both of Joe's assumptions—that he is superior to Otis because his own wife is pretty and that women are drawn to Otis because he appears wealthy—empowerment is based on the exploitation of women. One notion suggests that a pretty wife is to be owned and “paraded” like a trophy to exhibit male status; the other implies that women desire men who can provide for them financially, a notion that assumes women are willing to sell themselves.

“The Gilded Six-Bits” criticizes both middle-class values and oppressive gender roles. As its title suggests, the story concerns deceptions of wealth. Even the physical descriptions of the setting allude to economics: “physical borders of a yard, the economic borders of a laborer's payroll, and the conceptual borders of a limited way of life” (Baum 102). Missie May's attraction to a man who might provide her with more financial security than Joe demonstrates that economics plays a role in female sexuality, an idea based on ideologies that deny women sexual pleasure. It is important to note that while Otis appears to be wealthy, Joe and Missie May are not poverty stricken, for “they had money put away. They ought to be making little feet for shoes” instead of finding shoes for a child (92). Hurston does not establish diametrically opposed dualisms, which would juxtapose Slemmons's wealth against the Banks's poverty. However, she does imply that even if Otis's gold was genuine, he would represent middle-class values which do not offer social progress in terms of the larger groups of African Americans or women. As Chinn and Dunn point out, “Through Slemmons [Hurston] criticizes the white urban, materialistic values as a whole” (779). Hurston shows that like the gold that turns out to be fake, striving for gold (whether real or not) is a fallacy counterproductive to progress toward ethnic and gender equality. Striving for material wealth also has historical implications in the story. John Lowe notes that the image of the fake gold piece next to the broken chain that Joe pulls from Otis represents “the link between historical slavery and the ideology of consumerism” (77).

Rather than depicting an adulterous woman who suffers severe consequences to affirm social agendas that instruct women to remain monogamous, Hurston's story does not center on Missie May's infidelity. Instead, Hurston shows that economic disadvantage and adherence to middle-class values exploit Missie May's sexuality. Upon learning that Missie May has given birth to his son, Joe spends Otis's gilded half-dollar on candy for her: the product of her sexual encounter with Otis is used to purchase the symbol of Joe's reunion with Missie May. When he returns home at the end of the story, Joe leaves fifteen coins instead of the nine left at the beginning of the story; the game, he suggests, is now to be played on a higher level, one that involves competing economically for Missie May's affection. Far from taking a nonpolitical stance, “The Gilded Six-Bits” demonstrates that economics regulates Missie May's sexuality. Hurston shows Missie May as victim of a capitalistic economic structure that exploits women, who become commodities for empowered men.

Even more than “The Gilded Six-Bits,” “Sweat” exposes gender oppression by revealing the plight of women in a sexist society. The protagonist, Delia, works long hours washing laundry for white customers, whose economic privilege is contrasted with Delia's economic status: not only can she not afford to hire someone to wash her laundry, but she must also wash wealthy people's laundry to provide for herself. While the story demonstrates the disparity of wealth between the wealthy Winter Park whites and the poor Eatonville blacks, the main plot of the story does not center on this form of economic exploitation, but rather upon how Delia's husband, Sykes, exploits her. Ironically, throughout the course of the story, sweat signifies Delia's exploited labor and Sykes's poisoned mental state that ultimately leads to the physical poisoning that kills him. Additionally, “Sweat” exposes gender oppression and economic exploitation by suggesting that “what goes around comes around” (Hurd 7).⁶

The story opens with a technical description of Delia's labor that reveals that she works long hours every day of the week. Early on, the narrative establishes that Sykes both physically and mentally torments Delia. Scolding him for scaring her by sliding across her knee a bullwhip that she thinks is a snake, Delia says she may die from his foolishness. More interestingly, she asks him, “where you been wid mah rig? Ah feeds dat pony” (74), informing him that the pony belongs to her and that she pays for its upkeep. He responds by reminding her that he has told her repeatedly “to keep them white folks' clothes outa dis house” and by claiming that she should not “wash white folks clothes on the Sabbath” (74). Although the argument begins with a physical scare, it soon turns to a quarrel about economics. After scolding him for scaring her, Delia reminds him that she owns the pony, the means by which Sykes leaves the house. His rebuke reveals his resentment that Delia owns the material goods he wishes to use to entice Bertha to remain his girlfriend. He promises to give Bertha the house as soon as he “kin git dat 'oman outa dere” (79). Sykes pays Bertha's rent and spends money to take her to Winter Park for dates. He promises her that he will give her whatever she wants: “Dis is mah town an' you sho' kin have it” (79). Significantly, when Delia sees Sykes with Bertha, he is at the store purchasing groceries for her and telling her to “git whutsoever yo' heart desires” (79). Not only does Sykes spend Delia's money on Bertha, he wants to give Delia's other possessions to her.

Delia develops from a meek woman who acquiesces to Sykes's abuse to one who defends herself both verbally and physically. Although Delia has suffered abuse from Sykes for fifteen years, she has yet to refute him. However, during this particular argument that has turned to economics, her “habitual meekness … slip[s]” (75), and she responds to Sykes's verbal abuse with the assertion that she has been washing clothes and sweating for fifteen years to feed him and to pay for her house. Later, when he refuses to remove the snake from the house, she says, “Ah hates you, Sykes. … Ah hates you tuh de same degree dat Ah useter love yuh. Ah done took an' took till mah belly is full up tuh mah neck” (81). Significantly, she ends her argument by saying, “Lay 'roun' wid dat 'oman al yuh wants tuh, but gwan 'way fum me an' mah house” (82, emphasis added). Although the story involves a love triangle, the more important conflict is the battle between Sykes and Delia for possession of the house. Delia is much more concerned with protecting her property than she is with redeeming her marriage.

Hoping that Sykes will receive retribution for abusing her, a week before he dies, she says, “Whatever goes over the Devil's back, is got to come under his belly. Sometime or ruther. Sykes, like everybody else, is gointer reap his sowing” (76). Also, announcing that she refuses to leave her house, Delia threatens to report Sykes to the white people. Apparently, this threat scares him, for the next day he puts the snake in Delia's laundry basket. However, Delia does not depend on the “law” for justice. She seems to agree with the Eatonville community, which acknowledges both that there “oughter be a law about” Sykes and that “taint no law on earth dat kin make a man be decent if it aint in 'im” (77). Depending on forces above the law, Delia allows Sykes's retribution to come to him “naturally.” Unlike the conjure that renders poetic justice in many of Hurston's works, Sykes's own action renders justice in “Sweat”: the very snake he intends to bite Delia bites him instead.

Sykes's self-inflicted poisoning brings about poetic justice, as he is the victim of his attempt to kill Delia and thus gain possession of the house; but the sweat that comes from Delia's exploited labor is not self-inflicted: it is inflicted upon her by a vile social system that privileges wealthy whites. This vile social system also, to be sure, victimizes Sykes. As Lillie P. Howard points out, Sykes clearly is Delia's antagonist, but part of the reason he resents her is “because her work makes him feel like less than a man. He resents her working for the white folks, washing their dirty laundry, but he does not resent it enough to remove the need for her to do so” (67). Similarly, Lowe argues that although readers empathize with Delia, “the emasculation of the black man by a racist, capitalist society is on Hurston's mind too …” (74).

Critics argue whether or not Delia's refusal to help Sykes after the snake has bitten him exemplifies her spiritual downfall. Lowe says, “Delia's Christian righteousness, evident in the scene when she returns from a ‘Love Feast’ at church, also seems challenged by her failure to seek help for Sykes after he has been bitten by the snake at the end of the story and by her deliberate showing herself to him so he will know she knows what he attempted and that there is no hope for him” (74). Cheryl A. Wall says, “Delia makes no effort to warn, rescue, or even comfort [Sykes]. She exacts her revenge but at a terrible spiritual cost. … The narrator does not pass judgment. Yet, how will Delia, good Christian though she has tried to be, ever cross Jordan in a calm time?” (“Sweat” 12-13). Contrary to Wall and Lowe, Myles Hurd argues, “Because Hurston exerts quite a bit of creative energy in outlining Sykes's outrageous behavior and in subsequently punishing him for his misdeeds, Delia's virtue is too often easily overshadowed by his villainy.” (13). Hurd suggests that because Sykes is a “more dramatically compelling” character than Delia, some “readers overeagerly expect Delia to counter his evil, rather than allow herself to be repeatedly buffeted by it” (14). When readers consider that the sweat, or poison, eventually seeps out of Delia's body, the title of the story suggests that she is not spiritually corrupt. Similar to the poison that kills Sykes, Delia's sweat represents both literal bodily toxins and symbolic poisons that represent the social system that has caused her to sweat. Sykes is possessed by an evil that consumes his soul and eventually kills him; however, Delia remains pure because the sweat, the toxin or poison that represents the social system that exploits her, is released from her body and does not corrupt her physically or spiritually.

In an interesting twist that parallels the snake that bites Sykes instead of Delia, at the end of the story, “the man who has loomed above her through the years now crawls toward her, his fallen state emphasized by the frame of the door and Delia's standing figure; the man who has treated her with continuous contempt and cruelty now hopes for help from her” (Baum 101). At the end of the story, Delia notices Sykes looking to her with hope; however, she also realizes that the same eye that looks to her for help cannot “fail to see the tubs” as well (85). As he lies dying, he is forced to look at the tubs, the tools of Delia's exploited labor. It is significant that while he is in the process of dying from self-inflicted poison, Sykes is forced to observe the tubs, the source of Delia's sweat, symbolizing the poisoned social system. Perhaps the tubs represent for Sykes the very property he had hoped to acquire by killing her because he is reminded of the labor Delia has exchanged for the property. Earlier, in his attempt to kill her and thus gain possession of the house, Sykes places the snake in the laundry basket, another emblem of Delia's exploited labor. Sykes's use of a tool of Delia's labor as a tool for his effort to acquire her property reminds readers that only through intense sweat, exploited labor, has Delia been able to buy a house for herself. However, Delia is determined not to allow Sykes to take possession of the house. In addition to releasing her from his emotional and physical abuse, Sykes's death release the threat that Delia's house will be taken away from her.

The title “Sweat” refers both to Delia's hard work necessary to survive economically in a society that offers limited employment opportunities to African American women and to the emotional and physical agony Sykes's abuse causes her. As David Headon acknowledges, the story “forcefully establishes an integral part of the political agenda of black literature of this century. … [Hurston] places at the foreground feminist questions concerning the exploitation, intimidation, and oppression inherent in so many relations” (32). Breaking from literature that so often perpetuates stereotypical roles for women, “‘Sweat’ is in fact, protest literature” (32). Hurston simultaneously discourages those who try to reinforce sexist modes of oppression and encourages women to defy sexism by illustrating how those who abuse women are doomed.

Hurston demonstrates a similar type of damnation for men who abuse women in “Black Death,” a variation of the same tale told in “Uncle Monday.” “Black Death” reveals the Eatonville hoodoo man Old Man Morgan, whom Mrs. Boger seeks because Beau Diddely impregnated and refused to marry her daughter, Docia. When Mrs. Boger and Docia approach Beau about Docia's fate, he denies that Docia is pregnant: “Don't try to lie on me—I got money to fight. … You're lying—you sneaking little—oh you're not even good sawdust! Me marry you! Why I could pick up a better woman out of the gutter than you! I'm a married man anyway …” (204). His claim that he is married stuns Docia; she asks him to explain, and he says, “What difference does it make? A man will say anything at times. There are certain kinds of women that men always lie to” (204-05). Beau's argument is packed with references to economic status. He says that he has the money to fight, a reminder that the legal system privileges wealth. Also, his attacks against Docia are based on class: he compares her with sawdust and says a woman found in the gutter is better than Docia.

Shocked at Beau's behavior, Docia reminds him that he promised to marry her, to which he responds, “Oh well, you ought not to have believed me—you ought to have known I didn't mean it” (205). Denying any responsibility whatsoever, Beau instead places blame on Docia. Instead of acknowledging that certain types of men lie, he reverses responsibility and says that specific types of women are lied to. He also argues that it is okay for him to lie to her, but naive of her to believe him.

Witnessing her daughter's heartache makes Mrs. Boger realize that “the world's greatest crime is not murder—its most terrible punishment is meted to her of too much faith—too great a love” (206). Her daughter's suffering also prompts Mrs. Boger to transform from woman to “cold stone … tiger, a female tiger,” one that seeks revenge for her daughter's suffering (206, emphasis added). Mrs. Boger visits Old Man Morgan, who already knows what she seeks; upon answering the door he asks, “How do yuh wants kill 'im? By water, by sharp edge, or a bullet?” (206). Old Man Morgan instructs Mrs. Boger to shoot the mirror when Beau's reflection appears. It is important to note that Mrs. Boger pays for Beau's death. After realizing that Beau has “robbed [Docia] of everything” (206), she visits Morgan, who has long ago “sold himself to the devil” (203). After she shoots the mirror, she “[flings] her money at the old man who seize[s] it greedily” (207). References to capital used in descriptions of Beau's crime against Docia and Mrs. Boger's revenge reveal that economics is as much a factor in Beau's death as hoodoo.

Economics is not the only factor in Beau's death: instead of depending on a white legal system to render justice, Mrs. Boger seeks conjure, which is practiced frequently in Eatonville. “Black Death” demonstrates that conjure is a much more reliable source of justice than the white legal system. In this regard, “Black Death” is similar to “The Bone of Contention,” another one of Hurston's humorous stories. In “The Bone of Contention,” a character says, “Never mind bout dem white folks laws at O'landa, Brother Long. Dis is a colored town” (218). Both “The Bone of Contention” and “Black Death” suggest that Eatonville refuses to conform to laws created by whites that maintain the political interests of the empowered. Moreover, the title “Black Death” alludes to the African American justice system practiced in Eatonville: “black” refers both to the darkness of death and to the black as opposed to the white system of justice. The story blatantly contrasts black and white customs, including methods of justice. It begins, “The Negroes in Eatonville know a number of things that the hustling, bustling white man never dreams of. He is a materialist with little ears for overtones” (202). While the white coroner's “verdict” is that Beau died “from natural causes” (207), “the Negroes knew instantly” that Beau's death was the result of hoodoo and “agreed that he got justice” (208).

Docia feels mortified that Beau has spread ugly rumors about her throughout Eatonville; but after his death, Beau, whose name has romantic connotations—he is “the darling of the ladies” (207)—is now the one about whom Eatonville gossips. At the end of the story Eatonville gossips about how Beau died while wooing a woman. While chanting the “Conquest of Docia” that boasts how Docia loved and pursued him, he dies from what appears as “heart failure” (207), an appropriate punishment for breaking Docia's heart. More significantly, Hurston reveals that the black community gives retribution for sexist attitudes through its own means of justice. Although Mrs. Boger claims that the victim of unrequited love suffers more than the victim of murder, readers understand that Beau suffers much more permanently than Docia.

“Black Death” is but one example of the short stories in which Hurston reveals folklore, and hoodoo is but one of the many depictions of the cultural practices, social customs, and spiritual beliefs throughout her works. About her desire to explore experiences of rural African Americans, Hurston says,

I was glad when somebody told me, “You may go and collect Negro-folk-lore.” In a way it would not be a new experience for me. When I pitched headforemost into the world I landed in the crib of negroism. From the earliest rocking of my cradle, I had known about the capers Brer Rabbit is apt to cut and what the Squinch Owl says from the house top. But it was fitting me like a tight chemise. I couldn't see it for wearing it. It was only when I was off in college, away from my native surroundings, that I could see myself and stand off and look at my garment. Then I had to have the spy-glass of Anthropology to look through at that.

(Mules [Mules and Men] 3)

Amidst depictions of rural African Americans, Hurston confronts issues such as the plight of women in a sexist society and the problems that surface because of unequal distribution of wealth. As these stories imply, sometimes gender and class compound to make it even more difficult to overcome obstacles. Moreover, Hurston demonstrates that oppression based on ethnicity blends with that based on gender and class, magnifying even further the difficulties of black women who are poor.⁷ Whether exploited according to one or more of these social structures, Hurston depicts strong women who challenge oppression. Representative of the folklore embraced in her writing, Hurston's works also reveal that those who perpetuate these forms of oppression become the victims of their own crimes. By celebrating African American women who defy traditional norms that reinforce stereotypes and by condemning the empowered who support such stereotypes, Hurston encourages disruption of social forces that oppress African Americans, women, and the economically underprivileged.

Notes

1. For the significance of Eatonville as setting, see Lillios.

2. Whether in broader topics or as the focus of their discussions, almost all critics allude to Hurston's portrayal of African American folklore. The following essays reflect their topics: Southerland, Stein, Faulkner, Jacobs, Kalb, and Speisman. Klaus Benesch looks at Hurston's use of black English and sees Janie's major conflict as her search for her African American cultural heritage. Mary O'Connor credits Hurston with establishing for women an African American literary tradition wherein talking is a tool used to blend race and gender.

3. For example, in 1974, June Jordan noted that “Wright's Native Son is widely recognized as the prototypical black protest novel. By comparison, Hurston's novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, seems to suit, perfectly, the obvious connotations of Black affirmation”; she adds, however, the two traditions are not mutually exclusive: “affirmation of Black values and lifestyle within the American context is, indeed, an act of protest” (5). Similarly Alice Walker notes, “Black writing has suffered, because even black critics have assumed that a book that deals with the relationship between members of a black family—or between a man and a woman—is less important than one that has white people as a primary antagonist” (202). In 1974, S. J. Walker observed, “Their Eyes Were Watching God deals far more extensively with sexism, the struggle of a woman to be regarded as a person in a male-dominated society, than racism, the struggle of blacks to be regarded as persons in a white-dominated society” (520). As Pam Bordelon's 1997 title, “New Tacks on Dust Tracks: Toward a Reassessment of the Life of Zora Neale Hurston,” suggests, critics continue to look for new ways to examine Hurston's works.

4. In her discussion of Hurston's autobiography and Their Eyes Were Watching God Kathleen Davies alludes to the concept of a “poetics of embalmment,” wherein female narrators employ “signifyin'” to testify about ways they are oppressed by men and ways men are punished for such oppression.

5. From feminist perspectives, many scholars examine Hurston's women characters and look at the social issues in Hurston's works that concern women. Lorraine Bethel points out that throughout her works Hurston disrupts stereotypes of African American women portrayed by white males. Missy Dehn Kubitschek argues that Hurston's portrayal of strong and courageous black women inspired future black women writers to depict nonstereotypical black women characters. Mary Helen Washington sees Janie as a leader in her community and as a developing hero.

   Similarly, Gay Wilentz suggests that Janie is one of the earliest African American women characters to develop cultural and personal identity. Cheryl Wall (“Mules and Men”) and Claire Crabtree view Hurston as anthropologist/folklorist and suggest feminist issues in Hurston's works. Pearlie M. Peters examines feminist aspects of oral discourse in Hurston's works. Many scholars examine Hurston as a female autobiographer: Krasner, Fox-Genovese, Lionnet, and McKay, for example.

6. See “Sweat,” edited by Cheryl A Wall, for excellent background information and interpretations of “Sweat”; Myles Hurd makes astute observations about poetic justice in “Sweat”: because Sykes justly is punished for his “outrageous behavior … Delia's virtue is too often easily overshadowed by his villainy” (13).

7. As Deborah K. King points out, “The triple jeopardy of racism, sexism, and classism is now widely accepted and used as the conceptualization of black women's studies” (46). However, she notes that the relationship between the three factors is more than a simple equation that adds racism, sexism, and classism. She coins the term “multiple jeopardy” to denote not only “simultaneous oppressions” but also “the multiplicative relationships among them as well. In other words, the equivalent formulation is racism multiplied by sexism multiplied by classism” (47).

Works Cited

Baum, Rosalie Murphy. “The Shape of Hurston's Fiction.” Glassman and Seidel 194-09.

Benesch, Klaus. “Oral Narrative and Literary Text: Afro-American Folklore in Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Callaloo 11 (1988): 627-35.

Bethel, Lorraine. “‘This Infinity of Conscious Pain’: Zora Neale Hurston and the Black Female Literary Tradition.” All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies. Ed. Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Scott. Old Westbury, NY: Feminist P. 176-88.

Bordelon, Pam. “New Tacks on Dust Tracks: Toward a Reassessment of the Life of Zora Neale Hurston.” African American Review 31 (1997): 5-21.

Chinn, Nancy, and Elizabeth E. Dunn. “‘The Ring of Singing Metal on Wood’: Zora Neale Hurston's Artistry in ‘The Gilded Sixbits.’” Mississippi Quarterly 49 (1996): 775-90.

Crabtree, Claire. “The Confluence of Folklore, Feminism and Black Self-Determination in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Southern Literary Journal 17.2 (1985): 54-66.

Davies, Kathleen. “Zora Neale Hurston's Poetics of Embalmment: Articulating the Rage of Black Women and Narrative Self-Defense.” African American Review 26 (1992): 147-59.

Faulkner, Howard J. “Mules and Men: Fiction As Folklore.” CLA Journal 34 (1991): 331-39.

Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth. “My Statue, My Self: Autobiographical Writings of Afro-American Women.” Gates 176-203.

Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. Reading Black, Reading Feminist: A Critical Anthology. New York: Meridian, 1990.

Glassman, Steve, and Kathryn Lee Seidel, eds. Zora in Florida. Orlando: U of Central Florida P, 1991.

Headon, David. “‘Beginning to See Things Really’: The Politics of Zora Neale Hurston.” Glassman and Seidel 28-37.

Hemenway, Robert E. Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1978.

Howard, Lillie P. Zora Neale Hurston. Boston: Twayne, 1980.

Hurd, Myles Raymond. “What Goes Around Comes Around: Characterization, Climax, and Closure in Hurston's ‘Sweat.’” Langston Hughes Review 12.2 (1993): 7-15.

Hurston, Zora Neale. The Complete Stories of Zora Neale Hurston. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Sieglinde Lemke. New York: Harper, 1995.

———. Dust Tracks on a Road: An Autobiography. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1942.

———. “How It Feels to Be Colored Me.” I Love Myself When I Am Laughing … And Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader. Ed Alice Walker. Old Westbury, NY: Feminist P, 1979. 152-56.

———. Mules and Men. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1935.

Jacobs, Karen. “From ‘Spy-Glass’ to ‘Horizon’: Tracking the Anthropological Gaze in Zora Neale Hurston.” Novel 30 (1997): 329-60.

Jordan, June. “On Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston.” Black World 23 (1974): 4-8.

Kalb, John D. “The Anthropological Narrator of Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Studies in American Fiction 16 (1988): 169-80.

King, Deborah K. “Multiple Jeopardy, Multiple Consciousness: The Context of a Black Feminist Ideology.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 14.1 (1988): 42-72.

Krasner, James N. “The Life of Women: Zora Neale Hurston and Female Autobiography.” Black American Literature Forum 23 (1989): 113-26.

Kubitschek, Missy Dehn. “‘Tuh De Horizon and Back’: The Female Quest in Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Black American Literature Forum 17 (1983): 109-15.

Lillios, Anna. “Excursions into Zora Neale Hurston's Eatonville.” Glassman and Seidel 13-27.

Lionnet, Françoise. “Autoethnography: The An-Archic Style of Dust Tracks on a Road.” Gates 382-414.

Lowe, John. Jump at the Sun: Zora Neale Hurston's Cosmic Comedy. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1994.

McKay, Nellie Y. “Race, Gender, and Cultural Context in Zora Neale Hurston's Dust Tracks on a Road.” Life/Lines: Theorizing Women's Autobiography. Ed. Bella Brodski and Celeste M. Schenck. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1988. 175-88.

Meisenhelder, Susan Edwards. Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Race and Gender in the Work of Zora Neale Hurston. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 1999.

O'Connor, Mary. “Zora Neale Hurston and Talking Between Cultures.” Canadian Review of American Studies Special Issue, Part 1 (1992): 141-61.

Peters, Pearlie M. “‘Ah Got the Law in My Mouth’: Black Women and Assertive Voice in Hurston's Fiction and Folklore.” CLA Journal 37 (1994): 293-302.

Seidel, Kathryn Lee. “The Artist in the Kitchen: The Economics of Creativity in Hurston's ‘Sweat.’” Wall, “Sweat” 169-81.

Southerland, Ellease. “The Influence of Voodoo on the Fiction of Zora Neale Hurston.” Sturdy Black Bridge: Visions of Black Women in Literature. Ed. Roseann P. Bell, Bettye J. Parker, and Beverly Guy-Sheftall. Garden City, NJ: Anchor P, 1979. 172-83.

Speisman, Barbara. “Voodoo As Symbol in Jonah's Gourd Vine.” Glassman and Seidel 86-93.

Stein, Rachel. “Remembering the Sacred Tree: Black Women, Nature, and Voodoo in Zora Neale Hurston's Tell My Horse and Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Women's Studies 25 (1996): 465-82.

Walker, Alice. “Alice Walker.” Interviews With Black Writers. Ed. John O'Brien. New York: Liveright, 1973. 184-211.

Walker, S. Jay. “Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God: Black Novel of Sexism.” Modern Fiction Studies 20 (1974-75): 519-27.

Wall, Cheryl A. “Mules and Men and Women: Zora Neale Hurston's Strategies of Narration and Visions of Female Empowerment.” Black American Literature Forum 23 (1989): 661-80.

———, ed. “Sweat”: Zora Neale Hurston. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1997.

Washington, Mary Helen. “‘I Love the Way Janie Crawford Left Her Husbands’: Zora Neale Hurston's Emergent Female Hero.” Invented Lives: Narratives of Black Women, 1886-1960. New York: Doubleday, 1987. 237-54.

Wilentz, Gay. “Defeating the False God: Janie's Self-Determination in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.” Faith of a (Woman) Writer. Ed. Alice Kessler-Harris and William McBrien. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1988. 285-91.