Zora Neale Hurston and the Survival of the Female
2016; University of North Carolina Press; Volume: 15; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1534-1461
Autores Tópico(s)American and British Literature Analysis
ResumoJonah's Gourd Vine, Zora Neale Hurston's first novel (1934), begins with the violent struggle between a Black man and wife: The pain and anger killed the cry within her. She wheeled to fight. The raw hide again. This time across her head. She charged in with a stick of wood and the fight was on. This had happened many times before. Amy's strength was almost as great as Ned's and she had youth and agility with her. Forced back to the wall by her onslaught, Ned saw that victory for him was possible only by choking Amy. He thrust his knee into her abdomen and exerted a merciless pressure on her throat.1 Amy survives the wife-beating through the intervention of John, her son. Later, quarrels occur between John and his wife, Lucy. What defeats John is not his wife's tigress onslaught but her sharp tongue: Jes 'cause women folks ain't got no big muscled arm and fistes lak jugs, folks claims they's weak vessels, but dass uh lie. Dat piece uh red flannel she got hung 'tween her jaws is equal tuh all de fistes God ever made and man ever seen.2 Critic Addison Gayle sees in Jonah's Gourd Vine a very early treatment of the conflict between Black men and Black women in Hurston's writing.3 1 Zora Neale Hurston, Jonah's Gourd Vine (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1934), p. 22. 2 Hurston, Jonah1's Gourd Vine, p. 157. Similar references to the strength of a woman's tongue
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