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March 5, 2010
Corinne Morgan
Mrs. Porter
English 3CP Period 1
10 March 2009
Jonah’s Gourd Vine: A Critical Analysis
Zora Neale Hurston was born in Eatonville, Florida. When Hurston turned
fourteen she left her hometown to work as a maid and traveled with Gilbert and Sullivan
theatrical troupe. She entered Howard University in 1923, and shortly after she published
her first short story in Stylus, which was the university literary magazine. After winning a
scholarship to Barnard College in New York City in 1925, she studied anthropology under
one of the most renowned anthropologists of the era Franz Boas. She continued her
studies with Boas after graduating in 1928 at Columbia University.
Being in New York and becoming involved in the Harlem Renaissance, she
established friendships with other important black authors and published short stories.
Hurston founded Fire!, with other black writers and Langston Hughes. She returned to
her hometown for folklore, after having the assistance of fellowships and a private grant
from a New York socialite interested in “primitive Negro art.”
The result of the anthropologic field that Hurston has, she wrote Mules and Men.
What the teller calls “lies“, is the folklore, which this story includes. Voodoo practices are
mentioned and described in the story. The information on folklore practices were praised
by critics of that time. Hurston’s first novel was Jonah’s Gourd Vine, which was
published in 1934, combined her knowledge of folklore and biblical themes.
John was an adopted son of a shift-less, scam-prone sharecropper that treated him
very well. His biological father was a white plantation owner, where he worked and
flourished. He was treated better with his adopted family than he was at his actual home.
It was made sure that John had new clothes and an education.
John became beyond his own control, and was compared to the gourd vine and
eventually withers like it in the end. He was young man who loved too many women for
his own good. Being a victim of this, he falls in love with a girl named Lucy and ends up
being with her for as long as they live. She was loyal to John even when he was unfaithful
to her. When he was being hot-headed, she was calm and patient with him and
understanding.
Eventually, John finds himself preaching at a Florida congregation, and despite his
indiscretions, he was doing a lot better than he thought. Even after becoming the popular
pastor of Zion Hope, his sermons and prayers for cleansing rouse the congregation’s
fervor where there, and then John has to confess that though he is a preacher on Sundays.
He considers himself as a sympathetic portrait of a man and his community.
In the future, John and Lucy have seven kids, and they live a happy life. Later in
life, Lucy dies and John is just like Jonah and his “protection shield” is down that she had
provided for him. John has realized that faith, tolerance, and good intentions cannot
resolve the tension between the spiritual and the physical.
What I should like to conclude wit is the hypothesis that one reason Zora Neale
Hurston was attracted to the scientific conceptualization of her racial experience during
the late twenties and early thirties was its prima facie offering of a structure for black
Folklore (Hemenway 212).
Unquestionably, Their Eyes Were Watching God is the prototypical Black novel of
affirmation; it is the most successful, convincing, and exemplary novel of Blacklove that
we have (Jordan 6-7).
It might first seem natural for a preacher’s daughter to meet up with emotional
difficulties when moving from Christianity to African derived Hoodoo (Southerland 25).
Here in [“Jonah’s Gourd Vine”] there springs, with validity and vitality a fresh
note which, to this commentator, is unique. As a matter of fact, not even excepting
Langston Hughes, it is doubtful if there is any literary precedent for the particular type of
accomplishment that characterizes “Jonah’s Gourd Vine.” (Hurst 7) The author’s
treatment of whites is as natural and without change of key as it would need to be if she is
to succeed in keeping universality the dominant note of her book (8).
“Jonah’s Gourd Vine” can be called without fear of exaggeration the most vital
and original novel about the American Negro that has yet been written by a member of the
Negro race. No amount of special knowledge of her subject, however, could have made
“Jonah’s Gourd Vine” other than a mediocre novel if it were not for Miss Hurston’s
notable talents as a storyteller (Wallace 6-7).
sorry. guess i didnt expect comments but uhm the paper isnt finished yett.duhh. thats whyy i saved it so i can print it off else where
Go ahead and save it. You will get a B-. You didn’t cite enough. There is alot of info in there that is obviously from a book with no reference to where it came from. Your MLA formatting is pretty bad. But you look like you tried, so unless your teacher is a dick you will get a High C or Low B.
read comments (1)
March 6th, 2010 at 4:36 am
Go ahead and save it. You will get a B-. You didn’t cite enough. There is alot of info in there that is obviously from a book with no reference to where it came from. Your MLA formatting is pretty bad. But you look like you tried, so unless your teacher is a dick you will get a High C or Low B.
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