Lesson Plans

Course Links
Lesson Plans
Course Documents Links
Secondary Sources

Quick Links
Library Links
Citing Sources

American Lit II Home Page

Zora Neale Hurston
Circa 1920s-30s

Image source: Library of Congress

Terms | Life | Times | Class Discussion | Group Questions | Links | Pictures | Quotes from Critics

Terms to Know
Harlem Renaissance: occurred during the 1920s, a result of the confluence of black American writers and artists in a district which was already fashionable among the white smart set as the music-and-entertainment capital of New York. The early years of the century had seen the publication of works such as W. E. B. DuBois's The Souls of Black Folk and Booker T. Washington's Up From Slavery, indicating the future role of black people in America. In 1925, Alain Locke, a professor at Howard University, brought together a collection of short stories, poems, and prose by divers hands, under the title The New Negro. As the abstraction was held to characterize the ‘spiritual Coming of Age’ of the black race, so the volume itself could be seen as a mark of its cultural maturity.

Major figures in the Harlem Renaissance were Langston Hughes, Arna Bontemps, James Weldon Johnson, Nella Larsen, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Zora Neale Hurston, many of whom treated the themes of black life in a way that felt modern, while borrowing elements from the folk literature of black tradition. Visual artists of the Renaissance, including Aaron Douglas and William H. Johnson, incorporated African and primitive motifs into their work. Among the magazines founded at the time which devoted themselves to ‘Negro studies’ were Crisis (edited by DuBois), Opportunity, and the Messenger.

These magazines were not exclusively literary, but the significance of the Harlem Renaissance did not lie solely in its literary impact. Although much that was produced from Harlem in the 1920s is of greater historical than artistic importance, the Renaissance made white America aware for the first time of the modern art of a people it had not long before kept in slavery.

For an account of this development see Harlem Renaissance, by Nathan Irvin Huggins (New York, 1971). When Harlem Was in Vogue, by David Levering Lewis (New York, 1981) is a study of broader scope, with less emphasis on the literary life of the 1920s.

Campbell, James. "Harlem Renaissance, The." The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry in English. Ed. Ian Hamilton. Oxford University Press, 1996. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Ocean County College. 14 April 2009.

For a more detailed definition, read the entry in the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature.

The Great Depression: Depression of 1920--1921; the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The twentieth century experienced two depressions , both closely associated with public policy. The first occurred in 1920 -- 1921 . After World War I , with strong consumer demand from Europe and at home, U.S. firms maintained high levels of production and even increased inventories. But a sudden contraction in demand, as the U.S. government slashed spending and European production recovered, burst this speculative inventory bubble. Real gross national product fell some 6 percent, unemployment spiked to 12 percent, and wholesale prices fell by 37 percent. Prices returned to prewar levels by July 1921 , however, and the economy began to rebound.

The Great Depression that began in 1929 did not witness such rapid recovery. Indeed, it proved to be the worst depression in American history. The real gross national product fell 30 percent, prices declined 23 percent, net investment became negative (that is, new capital investment did not equal the depreciation of the existing stock of capital), and unemployment became a fact of life for 24 percent and more of the labor force. Recovery from such an economic catastrophe was slow and difficult. The gross national product did not return to 1929 levels until 1937, and then in 1937 -- 1938 the economy experienced a "depression within a depression." Unemployment remained high. As late as 1941 , even as the war in Europe stimulated the U.S. economy, more than 10 percent of Americans were still seeking work.

The causes of the Great Depression remain a matter of intense debate. Most scholars argue that a combination of factors led to the downturn in 1929 , including changes in Federal Reserve policy, a decline in consumption, and diminished investment. The 1929 stock market crash did not cause the depression , but stock speculation on Wall Street had encouraged the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates. Losses in the stock market diminished consumer spending by investors, while poor harvests and low agricultural prices restrained farm spending. After record years of residential construction, investment peaked in 1926 but fell thereafter, dropping to one-half its 1926 level by 1929 . What made this depression so devastating, however, was not the downturn in 1929 , but the great skid thereafter, as the economy declined at an accelerating rate into 1933 .

Recently, economists have highlighted the international nature of the depression of the 1930s and the role of the gold standard in spreading its misery. During World War I , most nations had gone off gold; that is, they would not redeem their currency for gold at the prewar rate. During the 1920s the leading industrial nations returned to the gold standard. However, the system suffered from serious flaws. Among the most important was the fact that the United States and France held a disproportionate share of the world's gold, reducing the flexibility of other nations. To remain on the gold standard when faced with demands for their gold, these nations would have to raise interest rates, slowing their economies and creating unemployment. In an era of mass politics this proved impossible, and nations began to abandon the gold standard, culminating with Great Britain and the British Commonwealth nations in 1931 . Recovery generally came quickly to nations that devalued their currencies.

The United States, however, remained committed to the gold standard, and as other countries devalued, Americans faced tremendous pressure. Offered the choice of American goods or American gold, holders of U.S. dollars preferred gold, believing that the United States would not stay on the gold standard forever. This constrained the Federal Reserve System . It could not expand the monetary supply, since this would increase the potential claims on its gold stocks. Instead, to conserve what gold it had, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, driving the economy deeper into depression .

Recovery began when Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president in March 1933 . While depressions usually brought a change in presidential administrations, Roosevelt won in a landslide and used this mandate to secure passage of an amazing slate of legislation during his first hundred days. Most importantly, he devalued the dollar, increasing the value of gold from slightly more than twenty to thirty-five dollars an ounce. At these prices, and with political unrest rising in Europe, gold flowed into the United States. Since the money stock in the United States was a function of gold holdings, the money supply grew rapidly, increasing by some 11 or 12 percent a year until 1937 . As their reserves grew, banks were encouraged to lend, businesses to build inventories, and consumers to spend in anticipation of further price increases. But given the depth of the depression , the public demanded more than monetary measures. The New Deal, the label given to Roosevelt's policies between 1933 and 1938 , brought a host of programs that altered fundamentally the relationship between the government and the economy. Among the most important programs were regulation of securities, trucking, banking, and utilities; federal deposit insurance; agricultural price supports; minimum-wage and maximum-hour legislation; collective bargaining for unions; Social Security ; unemployment insurance ; and public housing . The federal government matched state spending (on a 1:1 or 2:1 ratio, depending on the program) for relief, assistance to the elderly and disabled, and destitute mothers with dependent children.

In 1937, the federal government's decision to increase required bank reserves and to cut spending, coupled with the withholding of Social Security taxes from workers' paychecks, again sent the economy into depression . The stock market fell 50 percent, industrial production 38 percent, and the number of unemployed doubled. The government immediately shifted course, increasing bank reserves and undertaking more spending on public works and work relief. While Keynesianism would not be adopted as explicit policy until after World War II , the 1937 -- 1938 debacle proved that government would no longer stand by while the economy sank.

From Diane Lindstrom  "Depressions, Economic"   The Oxford Companion to United States History . Paul S. Boyer, ed. Oxford University Press 2001. Oxford Reference Online . Oxford University Press.   Ocean County College.  20 April 2009.

Back to top

The Life
See textbook for introduction -- in particular, note her work as an anthropologist: and her pauper's death.

Back to top

The Times
Note that she's writing during the Great Depression.

Back to top

Class Discussion

"How it Feels to be Colored Me"

• W. E. B. Dubois famously wrote in The Souls of Black Folk (1903) , "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line" (vii). How does Hurston both agree with and reject this assertion in "How it Feels to be Colored Me"?
• Trace connections between Langston's "Theme for English B" and Hurston's "How it Feels." Why would these two writers stress autobiographical themes in their writings?

"The Gilded Six Bits"

• Why the opening bathing scene? How does it ripple through the story?
• What is the domestic life at the beginning of the story? Why the detailed presentation of the Banks' home life?
• Story is set in the depression years: how does this affect our understanding of the events?
• What's the significance of "gilded"?
• What role does wealth play in this story?
• What does Missie May look for on the way home from the ice-cream parlor?
• How does the setting work to convey the labor/capital dichotomy?
• Any references to slavery?
• How is Otis different from Joe? Trace out the contrasts.
• Why the two body types for the men? Why not both fat or both lean? Joe tells Missie May "He jes' got a corperation" (1715) -- why?
• How does the urban/rural dynamic play out here?
• Laurie Championi argues that "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." Is all of this statement true?
• What does Joe do when he comes home from the plant every week? What does he throw into a pan?
• "He'll do in case of a rush. But he sho' is got a heap uh gold on 'im . . . It lookted good on him sho' nuff."
• Why does the gilded gold piece still have a bit of the chain attached?
• Consider the role of orality and dialect in this story: note that the scene in the ice-cream store isn't described directly, it's related orally. How does this effect our understanding of the characters and their world?
• Why the repetition of "Negro" in the first lines?
• Why the repetition of "spots and places"? Who says this?
• What Joe's last name?

Back to top

Group Questions

1. In class assignment: working in pairs, use laptops to access OCC library's databases, and using the Literature Resource Center, find a source on "The Gilded Six Bits." Quickly read/skim essay, and pull out a sentence that you feel helps you understand the story, copy it, and be prepared to 1) read quote, and 2) explain how it helps you understand the story.
2. W. E. B. Dubois famously wrote in The Souls of Black Folk (1903) , "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line" (vii). How does Hurston both agree with and reject this assertion in "How it Feels to be Colored Me"?
3. Trace connections between Langston's "Theme for English B" and Hurston's "How it Feels." Why would these two writers stress autobiographical themes in their writings?
4. How does the urban/rural dynamic play out in the story? Trace out its social/psychological/emotional and economic implications.
5. Laurie Championi argues that "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." Is all of this statement true?

Back to top

Links

Back to top

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures
Click to enlarge

Back to top

Quotes from Critics

Thus, the mock battle and flirtatious banter of the opening scene not only provide evidence of Missie May and Joe's domestic happiness, they also subtly demonstrate the asymmetry of their economic power vis-á-vis their gender roles. In some sense, the gender roles in a traditional marriage of the 1930s--a marriage where the man has a job and the woman keeps house--echo the unseemly implications of throwing money at a woman. Marriage is a kind of exchange. A woman, with no economic power of her own, takes a man's money and gives him something in return--not only sex, as with prostitution, but also household labor, including childbearing and rearing. Sex and domestic work are what a man gets in exchange for passing his wages along to his wife. The couple's ritual plays on and revels in the rules of this arrangement.

When Slemmons offers Missie May gold in exchange for sex, she steps outside of her cherished role as a "real wife," not only in that she is unfaithful to her husband but in that she attempts to take over Joe's own cherished role as the family breadwinner. Slemmons is disruptive to the Banks's marriage not so much because he represents a competitive love interest or a real sexual threat, but because he encourages Missie May to attempt to provide economically for Joe by "earning" gold from him. When this is revealed, Missie May and Joe's traditional gender roles are upset, and the domestic ritual with which they reinforced them can no longer be celebrated.

Though the story promotes openness and forgiveness, it envisions this only by means of a return to the asymmetrical economic arrangement that is arguably what led to the problem in the first place: that Missie May is economically powerless without a man. The morning after her betrayal, she is somewhat comforted when Joe asks her to make him breakfast and, later, when he succumbs to sleeping with her. But harmony is fully restored in the house only when she gives Joe a son--the ultimate symbol of her wifely value. At this point, Joe, once again secure in his status as husband, takes the trinket he wrested from Slemmons wrist and buys a little gift, offering it, with his wages, as a sign of his true love.

Hardy, Sarah Madsen. "Critical Essay on 'The Gilded Six-Bits'." Short Stories for Students. Ed. Jennifer Smith. Vol. 11. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. Literature Resource Center . Gale. Ocean County CollegeLibrary. 17 Apr. 2009.

"Its shift in perspective (what Ellison would term "restoring of perspective"), its lack of preoccupation with audience, its sense that Southern rural black speech as dialect may contain any emotion in literature adds degrees of complexity not easily acknowledged or perceived in a cursory reading."

Jones, Gayl. "Breaking Out of the Conventions of Dialect: Dunbar and Hurston." Presence Africaine . 144 (Fall 1987): 39-46. Rpt. in Short Stories for Students . Ed. Jennifer Smith. Vol. 11. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. 39-46. Literature Resource Center . Gale. OCEAN COUNTY COLLEGE. 17 Apr. 2009

Popular songs, fiction, and movies throughout the 1930s celebrated the lives of the rich and the famous, the glamour of Hollywood and New York. Names like Rockefeller and Ford or the comic strip character "Daddy Warbucks" became metaphors for life on Easy Street. Hurston had collected folklore featuring Rockefeller and Ford as "modern culture hero[es]"

Using their marriage as a microcosm for the nation, Hurston explores what happens to individuals and relationships torn apart by value conflicts, and more importantly, what the process of healing might look like.

At a time when the fabric of American life seemed to be unraveling at an alarming rate--traditions breaking down, families torn apart by economic depression, public affairs in turmoil--Hurston pointed to the fallacy of asking the wrong questions and drawing the wrong conclusions. 15 Missie May and Joe could not avoid meeting Slemmons, just as Americans had to face the weaknesses of capitalism, but the resulting moral confusion did not mean that all was lost. Hurston did not dictate that the Bankses' marriage had to be over.

Changes in Joe also emerge during his visit to the store, part of the Saturday-night routine, to buy candy for Missie May. Earlier, he had described cosmopolitan Slemmons as a man "of spots and places" (p. 89). When Joe once again visits the store as a prelude to further reconciliation with Missie May, the storekeeper queries him about his long absence. Joe replies, "Ah ain't been heah. Been round in spots and places" (p. 97), indicating that, like Slemmons, he has become experienced in life. Unlike Slemmons, however, Joe's "spots and places" are not Northern cities but more local and internal, part of a journey in which silver coins represent true value and the reward is wisdom. But Joe's new wisdom takes more than one form. In a classic example of racial deception that echoes slavery survival strategies, Joe lies to the white storekeeper when asked how he got the gold-plated half dollar. Acknowledging that he took it "[o]ffen a stray nigger," Joe refuses to admit that he too had been fooled by Slemmons, pretending instead to have seen through the city-slicker's act from the beginning. Joe's deception leads the clerk to believe that the "darkies" simply spend their lives "[l]aughin' all the time. Nothin' worries 'em" (p. 98). Joe reveals nothing of the complexity of his real life, his struggle with Missie May, or his own culpability in the incident with Slemmons. In doing so, he protects himself from any advice or judgment that the store clerk may have been inclined to offer and simply lets the clerk's stereotypical image stand. By connecting Joe to the long tradition of deception, Hurston gives his character new weight and worldliness and lends the story a political twist.

Chinn, Nancy and Elizabeth E. Dunn. "'The Ring of Singing Metal on Wood': Zora Neale Hurston's Artistry in 'The Gilded Six-Bits'." Mississippi Quarterly. 49.4 (Fall 1996): 775-790. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 80. Detroit: Gale, 2005. 775-790. Literature Resource Center. Gale. Ocean County College Library. 17 Apr. 2009.

Back to top

© David Bordelon 2009