From Conformists To Defiers:Male Images In Zora Neale Hurston's Works

Zora Neale Hurston is a prominent African American writer,folklorist and anthropologist during Harlem Renaissance,and her works are permeated with her criticism and concerns on slavery and racial discrimination along with black men's status quo.Black masculinity constitutes a pivotal theme in Hurston's literary works,and Mules and Men,Their Eyes Were Watching God and Moses Man of the Mountain are three representative works pertaining to such theme.By combining a panoply of perspectives with Hurston's literary writing on male characters,the thesis will further explore the ideological and cultural connotations as well as construction strategies of black manliness in Hurston's works.Hopefully,it will enlighten people's cognition and research in such fields.The thesis is divided into five sections.It begins with a literary review on Hurston and her works,exploring her unique writing of black men in correlation to critical studies on men.Chapter one analyzes three male images who blindly conform to patriarchal masculinity with stereotypical masculine traits and behaviors.Not only have they caused harm to others,they have also trapped themselves in crisis.The second chapter studies three progressives from patriarchal masculinity.Compared to three male characters in chapter one,they enjoy a certain degree of consciousness,but are with limitations due to their emphasis on outward symbols like violence and wealth.Chapter three investigates male defiers against patriarchal masculinity.Such characters inherit traditional culture,adhere to selfhood and subvert and transcend patriarchal stereotypes in constructing and practicing manliness.They inherit many notions of traditional manliness,demonstrating considerable humanistic height and emotional depth.It is concluded that embedded in Hurston's writing and narration of male images,are her revelation and abandonment of destructive factors of patriarchal masculinity.Hurston thus deconstructs patriarchal masculinity exalted in white-dominated society,and proposes a number of strategies and icons so as to affirm new models of black manliness in the context of white domination.