Power and Masculinity
Zora Neale Hurston’s “Spunk” tells the tragic tale of two men and their virulent contest for one woman’s love. The two male characters at the heart of the story—Spunk Banks and Joe Kanty—are positioned as foils to one another when Spunk walks boldly through the neighborhood with Joe’s wife, Lena Kanty. Through these characters, and other men’s reactions to them, Hurston critiques notions of ideal or hegemonic masculinity. Examining the catastrophic consequences…
read analysis of Power and Masculinity
Women and Misogyny
Writing during the Harlem Renaissance—an intellectual and artistic black liberation movement that aimed to celebrate black culture and interpret the African American experience in new and positive ways—black women writers like Zora Neale Hurston often felt they had to choose between fighting for the freedom of the black community, or fighting for the rights of women. Amid the context of the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston garnered strong criticism from many of her black peers, who accused…
read analysis of Women and Misogyny
Legal Justice vs. Moral Justice
Born in 1891, Zora Neale Hurston’s childhood was hugely influenced by religion. Her father was a Baptist preacher and her mother developed the Christian curriculum at their local church. After training as an anthropologist at university, however, Hurston devoted much of her writing to capturing the rituals and spirituality of the black folk religion practiced in the American South. Morality, superstition, and spirituality are central motifs in Zora Neale Hurston’s “Spunk.” Through this portrait of…
read analysis of Legal Justice vs. Moral Justice
Storytelling
Growing up in Eatonville, Orlando, the country’s first incorporated black township, Hurston loved to observe members of the local community sharing stories on from their porches. For Hurston, storytelling and folklore were important traditions that needed to be preserved, and she delighted in encapsulating the rich cultural and linguistic landscape of the rural South through her writing. Many of her stories are set in a town much like Eatonville, where her black characters speak in…
read analysis of Storytelling
