Richard Wright vs. Zora Neale Hurston
The black experience is not one
defined only by struggle. Like the experiences of all other people, it is
nuanced and complex. Richard Wright calls out Hurston for misrepresenting the black
experience by not showing a battle against racial prejudice and the effects of
white supremacy. However, can’t the same argument be made for Native Son?
Wright does the same thing, misrepresenting the black experience by not showing
any of the joys or culture. His idea that black people’s only characteristic is
their struggle with inequality erases the experience of many people and makes
black people seem like side characters rather than full people.
As a black man, he cannot
understand the experience of a black woman in the south. I think Hurston puts a
lot of information in her novel about the lives of black women and the culture
they live through. For example, her grandmother’s opinions on relationships,
her experiences with abuse, and the normalization of abuse in the area/time they
live in. Her limited options as a black woman, being forced to marry Logan so
she isn’t taken advantage of and raped like the past two generations of women
in her family. All these experiences are quintessential to her life and most likely
the lives of countless other women at the time. Hurston is effectively giving a
far more nuanced view of inequality than Wright ever did.
Though there are valid critiques of
this novel, like every novel, Wright fails to identify any of them. Though
inequality is an important part of the black experience and is not to be
ignored, it’s not the only part. In saying so, Wright is ignoring the millions
of black people whose experiences are more nuanced because of their gender,
sexuality, class, etc.
Yes, I definitely agree - Richard Wright seemed to expect the only kind of book able to contribute to people's understanding of the experiences of black people to be a book like his (future) own, a book written about really heavy and dark events, made to prove a point, but Hurston's novel is just as valid through showing another experience. As well as that, he doesn't seem to appreciate the feminist aspects of her novel as political, a pretty big oversight.
ReplyDeleteI really like your point about Hurston's depiction of black women's experiences. Wright's critique of Their Eyes Were Watching God, among other things, seemed rooted in misogyny and unwillingness to see the value in a novel simply about a black woman's life. I also agree that even though TEWWG isn't a protest novel, it still definitely speaks to the effects that racism has had on the characters (just in subtler ways), in addition to depicting a broader range of experiences.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate the examples that you give of what Zora Neale Hurston brings to her novel that Wright misses out in his reading of it and his own. Wright's criticism of Their Eyes Were Watching God was almost entirely political, as well as saying that Hurston wasn't a serious writer. It seems like he didn't really appreciate what was present in her book (like the nuance that she brings to her world and characters you mentioned) because he was so preoccupied with what he viewed as missing.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your perspective on this, and I was quite honestly shocked seeing Wright's critique at first. It feels very disrespectful and I was uncomfortable with how he spoke about Their Eyes Were Watching God, especially after reading Native Son, a novel which neglected the female experience. It seems to me that Wright has a specific vision in what makes a good novel, and not much of an open mind for different storytelling styles.
ReplyDeleteAgreed! Any novel is at some level a reflection of its author, so any book by ZNH would then contribute in at least some infinitesimal way to exploring the nuances and complexities of the AA experience. And the fact that TEWWG isn't some random book, but a powerful and groundbreaking one illustrating a community never portrayed in such detail and honesty before, means that it contributes *so much* to better representing the black experience. As you explained, Wright has such a narrow conception of AA literature that his criticisms fall completely flat - because there is no defined or established way to depict a diverse and dynamic group of people.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I especially liked the point you made in your first paragraph. I think Richard Wright is definitely shortsighted because he seems to think that it's not worth it to write a novel about black people unless it's all about racial inequality. In doing this, he's invalidating all the other things that impact black people's lives.
ReplyDeleteI really agree with all of your criticisms of Wright's own criticism (and of Wright as a person). Reading that review, it just seemed to miss the point and even basic plot of Their Eyes Were Watching God completely due to Wright's perception of literally only one "right" way for any black person to write a novel - and only one correct topic to be written about. It's not as if Hurston was writing about Janie's life in urban Chicago - she writes about Janie's life in the rural South in mostly black/POC-populated settings that Hurston has pretty good authority on, given that she actually grew up Eatonville and traveled the South herself as an anthropologist. Hurston is likely depicting these places very accurately - Wright just plainly doesn't like the topic she chose to write on, for the reasons you highlight in the first paragraph, but then decides to criticize Hurston's novel as "minstrel-like" because of it.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree and I think that in order to accurately portray any identity's experience there needs to be many books about it, each focusing on different parts of the experience. Especially because not everybody's experience is the exact same, but to say that an experience portrayed is wrong, is just blatantly false. It's wrong of him to invalidate another black writer's work because it isn't about a character's experiences with systemic racism.
ReplyDeleteYes!! Wright completely ignores the idea or even the possibility of intersectionality in these novels. He sees it as a weakness instead of a strength. He seems to think that you can only tackle an issue by focusing on one problem at a time, not realizing that addressing other issues like sex and gender can enhance a piece of work.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with the points you made here! I think Hurston definitely provides a more realistic and comprehensive view of Janie's life and what's impacted it than Wright did in Native Son. Even if Their Eyes Were Watching God in't as blatantly of a protest novel as Native Son is, it disproves Wright's narrow vision of the "correct" way for a black person to write a novel. In a way, his limited idea that black people should only write about their struggles also generalizes the entire race and oversimplifies their struggles.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your blogpost ella! Richard Wright clearly doesn't understand the experience of black women. We saw it in his book where he had horrible descriptions and representation of black women and it was confirmed for us when we read his critique of zora neale hurston. I agree 100% with everything you wrote about and I'm so glad you chose to write about it.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with your points. Wright somehow thinks only his writing is valid when portraying the black experience. I wished he would've uplifted Hurston's novel instead because, like you mentioned, it highlights the experiences of black women, something Native Son briefly covers and exploits.
ReplyDeleteHey Ella, I completely agree with your argument against Wright's interpretation of Their Eyes Were Watching God. In Native Son, all of the female characters take a back seat, and are used as ploys to further Bigger's story. Just because Hurston provides a different interpretation of the black experience does not mean it's invalid. Overall, great job!
ReplyDeleteI agree that not only does Wright seem to have a skewed view of what books about black people have to be like, but also that he seemed to have missed a lot of commentary about a lot of different issues that was in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Although more subtle - for example it didn't have an entire section dedicated to excruciatingly laying out all its details and how the readers should view them - it was still very present throughout the book.
ReplyDeleteYeah I really agree and that's one of the reasons why I really enjoyed Their Eyes Were Watching God. I felt very grounded in reality without being hyperbolic in the way that Native Son sometimes is.
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