Realism and Dialect in Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright

The major works of Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright are alike in realism yet

distinctly set apart as social commentaries. Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God

depicts the lives of African Americans who are physically separated from white Americans

in the all-black town of Eatonville, Florida. Wright’s Uncle Tom’s Children, like Hurston’s

work, depicts the lives of black people in its barest form, with the inclusion of the African

American vernacular as the primary dialect in his work. However, Wright’s characters are

most often victims of the harsh realities of racism, segregation, lynchings, and murder.

Hurston does not actively present her politics in her writings, as she barely allows her

characters to converse with white people, let alone suffer from their degradation. Realism

in the works of Hurston and Wright is found not only in their dialectical narratives, but also

in their stripped-down depictions of black life: the oral slave tradition, rampant poverty,

and the defiant will to survive in a white world.

“Big Boy Leaves Home,” is Richard Wright’s commentary on the injustices and

prejudices suffered by black people. An innocent swim with peers results in the death of

two young black boys who, because they were caught unclothed, had unintentionally

terrified a white woman who likely feared rape; a common misperception of black males.

Big Boy defends himself and Bobo by shooting the white soldier who had killed his young

friends. Big Boy knows that he will be lynched for his crime, as this was a common form of

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justice in the old south. The terror of hiding in a hole in the ground and watching his best

friend burned to death, is an example of Wright’s staunch realism:

There was a sudden quiet. Then he shrank violently as the wind

carried, like a flurry of snow, a widening spiral of white feathers

into the night. The flames leaped tall as the trees. The scream

came again. Big Boy trembled and looked. The mob was

running down the slopes, leaving the fire clear. The he saw a

writhing white mass cradled in yellow flame, and heard screams,

one on top of the other, each shriller and shorter than the last.

The mob was quiet now, standing still, looking up the slopes

at the writhing white mass gradually growing black, growing

black in a cradle of yellow flame

(Wright 57).

Big Boy’s escape to Chicago also hints at Wright’s naturalistic tendencies, as Big Boy is a

victim not only of a cruel stereotype, a would-be rapist, but also his position in society as

poverty-stricken and poorly educated. Like thousand of other African Americans, he must

escape to life in the North; unbound by the chains of Jim Crow. Wright’s commitment to the

African American vernacular spoken by most of his characters is, like Hurston, another

facet of his realism, with the Dozens and Signifyin’ presenting an oral tradition that is

purely African American.

Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, like most of her work, is steeped in the

oral slave tradition of both manners and speech. Unlike Wright, however, Hurston’s

narratives are more metaphorical than they are a real and brutal representation of the

racism and injustices suffered by blacks. Hurston achieves this separateness by placing her

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characters in an all-black community where its members are free from the prying eyes of

white people. Although the town of Eatonville may present to its inhabitants a retreat from

the cruel white world, it is also a testament to Hurston’s ability to shroud her political

views in the shadows of metaphor; that the people of Eatonville are forced to set up their

own community, separate from whites, shows Hurston’s clear understanding of the

inability of whites and blacks to co-exist at this time in history. And while Hurston may be

accused of depicting a world where blacks must hide from whites, she ultimately creates a

world where blacks are autonomous and capable of building their own flourishing

communities.

The use of the African American vernacular is essential to the works of Hurston and

Wright and to their commitment to realism. Uncle Tom’s Children presents to the reader

the brutal realities of racism in America, seen through the eyes of common black people,

and articulated with their innovative vernacular that was born out of slavery and

segregation from Standard English. In “Down by the Riverside,” Wright captures the

dynamic oral tradition of the African American dialect, with its penchant for sermonizing

and spiritual tones:

Lawd Gawd Awmighty in Heaven, wes a-bowin befo Yuh once ergin,

humble in Yo sight, a-pleadin’ fer fergiveness n mercy! Hear us today,

Lawd! Hear us today ef Yuh ain never heard us befo! We needs Yuh

now t hep us n guide us! N hep these po folks, Laed! Deys Yo chillun!

Yuh made em n Yo own image! Open up their hearts n hep em t

have faith in Yo word! N hep this po woman, Lawd! Ease her labor,

fer Yuh said, Lawd, she has t bring foth her chillun in pain…

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(72)

Hurston is renowned for mixing dialect and metaphors in bursts of poetry and wisdom:

Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything as far as Ah been

able tuh fin out. Maybe it’s some way off in de ocean where de

black man is in power, but we don’t know nothin’ but what we

see. So de white man throw down the load and tell the nigger

man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don’t

tote it. De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can

see. Ah been prayin’ fuh it tuh be different wid you. Lawd, Lawd,

Lawd!

(Hurston, 14)

Hurston’s use of dialect is painstakingly accurate as each word is spelled exactly as it

sounds and as it would be spoken by African Americans, and like the work of Richard

Wright, it is also used to illustrate the difference in education and class between black and

white characters- the reader instantly knows if a character is white or black, not by their

actions, but by their speech.

The realism of Richard Wright is often agonizing, as blood seems to drip off every

word and seep plenary into the page. Hurston’s realism is rooted in her unapologetic

representation of blacks and their unique dialect, however free they may be from the

intrusion of whites in their communities. Although Hurston may appear to neglect the

reality of most African Americans who were living below the poverty line, unable to find

work, and still suffering from segregation laws and the fear of unfair prosecution and

murder, Hurston offers them her own reality, built on confidence in her race and possibly

prophetic of the world that was to come, where African Americans could succeed at

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business and politics and could move about the country as they pleased. The work of

Richard Wright is neither forgiving nor confident that the future will bring freedom and

equality to people, and this is plainly, clearly, because he refuses to part with reality of the

present.

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Hurston, Nora Zeale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper Perennial.

(1937).

Wright, Richard. Uncle Tom’s Children. New York: Harper Perennial. (1936).

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