| abstract |
This study examined the representation of humor in Zora Neale Hurston's
unpublished plays, and skits, which were discovered in 1997 in the archives of the
Library of Congress. Among these unpublished items, the following were selected for
this study: Meet the Momma (1925), De Turkey and De Law (1930), Cold Keener Skits-Filling Station and Cock Robin (1930),
The Fiery Chariot (1932), and Polk County
(1944). This study is twofold: To seek and examine how humor is represented in
Hurston's unpublished plays and skits; and to determine the similarity or dissimilarity
between the humor in her unpublished works and in her fiction by examining the humor
in her two novels, Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934) and Their Eyes Were Watching God
(1937). What makes for humor in Hurston's body of work? Does humor present itself in
her unpublished plays and skits as it does in her novels? If not, how does the
representation of humor differ?
In this study, three specific features that make for humor in Hurston's
unpublished plays and skits are identified. These three specific features are the discourse
of signifyin'(g) or indirection, the use of dialect or the expressions of Southern black
folks, and the situating of the three major theories of humor that exist in Hurston's
humor. Hurston used her plays and skits as a platform to present her people to the world
with authenticity and to disrupt the ideology associated with blackness to a non-human
status of 'thing' to humanness.
Hurston's identity emerges through the humor of the folks who act out their daily
performances on Joe Clark's storefront. As she went on errands for her mother at an early
age, daily tales she heard. The tales amused the folks of the Eatonville community and
tickled her as they remained enmeshed in her memory, that later provided the impetus for
the humor in her plays and skits. In so doing, she captures the spirit of the Eatonville
community through humor to ensure a segment of its precious culture would not be lost
or forgotten.
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