THE SEARCH FOR AN AUTHENTIC VOICE: ZORA NEALE HURSTON AND THE ORAL TRADITION

Abstract

The majority of Zora Neale Hurston's fiction and nonfiction utilizes aspects of the oral folk tradition. She not only incorporates elements like playing the dozens and signifying on others into her dialogue, but she also includes parts of the oral tradition within her narrative. Consequently, readers of her autobiography Dust Tracks on a Road, short story collection Mules and Men, and novel Their Eyes Were Watching God are offered a uniquely black perspective of life. Unlike many African-American authors writing before and during the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston's work is largely told from a black point of view, one that embraces African-American folk culture and does not focus on the exploitation of blacks in American society.