Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

What A Character: Zora Neale Hurston’S Autobiographies, Amy M. Elliott

Amy M. Elliott

Zora Neale Hurston’s Dust Tracks on a Road is a complicated text that reflects a complicated woman, and one that falls somewhere between the categories of autobiography and biography. While the work cannot be completely discounted as autobiographical, it contains themes surprisingly reminiscent of James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. Like Johnson’s autobiography of a fictional man, Hurston’s account contains hard to believe situations that lead readers to question its authenticity and verisimilitude. Additionally, Hurston’s stance on the race issue, a preaching of one view while practicing another, leads to questioning. Further, Dust Tracks on a Road …