The Affirmation of African American Aesthetic

During the period of the Harlem Renaissance, the morality of black writers was not to act according to social, political and economic laws established by whites. For instance, Richard Wright condemned Hurston's work because it was unconcerned with the revolutionary tradition of black writers in America, specifically of social injustice and political inequality. However, throughout her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston not only ritualized the distinctiveness of black culture, but also preserved traditional black culture as a way to improve as well as to recuperate the socio-political conditions of blacks living in the rural South. Hurston's recognition of the sociolinguistic significance of black oral tradition was central to her work. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston carefully attempted to record accurately the phonologic and morphological characteristics of the dialectal voices. Her gift for poetic phrases in black dialect and folk humor allowed her to explore the inner psychology of characters and the cultural background of the rural South. Consequently, she certainly made a valuable, admirable, and meaningful contribution to African American literary tradition although her concern for preserving African American culture somewhat prevented her from tackling crucial problems such as racism.