The fiction of Zora Neale Hurston: an assertion of black womanhood*

Resumo

Contrary to what oficial historical records show, recentstudies convincingly prove that women have been writing orcenturies, in a variety of literary modes and genres. However,an historical examination of the role of woman as writer revealsthat she has suffered from the persistent cultural ideal ofwoman's silence, an invisibility which has rendered her worksmarginal to what the guardians of the great tradition call 'theserious enterprise of art.' Denied legitimacy for so long by atraditional canon which has prescribed standards of literaryexcellence on the basis of pre-existing social bias, womenwriters are just beginning to be reviewed in major literarypublications, included in literary histories and universitycurricula as a result of the efforts geared to the body ofstudies in literature which has emerged as an important part ofthe post-60's upsurge of work in woman's studies, especially inthe United States. Certain ideas, perpetuated in the theory andpractice of literature, (such as the domain of the male creatorthrough whose agency and power man acquired the Word, becomingthe sacer vates, or the exclusively male transcendental images of creativity as opposed to earth-bound images of female nature), which have invested all significance in the experience, ideasand discourse of men, are now being called to question.Retrieving woman's texts and the literary expression of thefemale experience is a sign of basic changes in the consciousness of western art and society and a task in which weall should join as professionais concerned with the relationshipbetween women and literature.