African American ReviewFall, 1998"The world in a jug and the stopper in (her) hand": Their Eyes as blues performance. ... JohnsonIn her essays and autobiography as well as in her fiction, Zora Neale Hurston used the aesthetic principles, language, character, and structure of the blues to challenge socially prescribed roles of African American women. Like Bessie Smith and other vaudeville blues singers of the 1920s and 30s, Hurston also used blues means to present new images and to celebrate the individual voices of African American women. ... In Their Eyes, Hurston critiques the mule image of the blues, showing how white male definitions stifle the creativity of African American women. ... The textural contrasts Hurston creates through the use of shifts in idiom, address, and point of view are also aesthetically related to the use of distinctive timbres and contrasting sound colors in blues and other African American musics. ...
In Their Eyes Hurston uses techniques and processes of the blues performer to challenge the ways in which African American women have been controlled by others at the same time as she celebrates the individual journeys of women like herself who have struggled to make spaces where self-expression is possible, if not always nurtured. ... The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism. ... "Voices of Struggle: An Exploration of the Relationship Between African American Womens Music and Literature. ... " Black American Literature Forum 17 (1983): 109-15. ... " Black American Literature Forum 16 (1982): 25-28. ... " Black American Literature Forum 23 (1989): 661-80. ... "The Heterogeneous Sound Ideal in African-American Music.
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