Final Examination
Answer each of the four essay questions. Your answers for each question should be
approximately 600 words—or two pages—in length. You may write longer if you wish.
You do not need to provide any source citations or list of references.
This is an open book, open notes test. You are, however, to work on it alone.
When you are finished, please email me your double-spaced, completed exam. You may, of course, turn in your exam before then.
Please make sure that your name is on your exam.
Good luck!
1. Although she was born in Alabama, Zora Neale Hurston claimed Eatonville,
Florida as her hometown. What made Eatonville so distinctive? What did it
offer to African Americans that most other towns did not? And why did
Eatonville succeed, while other towns like it almost always failed?
2. In Barracoon, Kossula’s description of how he became a slave runs counter to
popular versions of African enslavement. How did Kossula become enslaved?
Who was responsible for the horrors he had to endure? And if reparations were
to be paid to Kossula’s descendants, who should pay them?
3. After decades of struggle, Zora’s literary career finally seemed ready to take off,
in a big way, in the years immediately following World War II. But in 1948, just
as her new novel Seraph on the Suwanee was about to be published, her life was
suddenly plunged into crisis. What had precipitated this crisis? How did it
impact Zora’s life and career?
4. Write a letter to a real, or imaginary, high school senior explaining why they
should, or should not, read Their Eyes Were Watching God. Explain to them why,
or why not, this novel from the 1930s has relevance to their lives today, and how
they might learn something of value from the saga of Janie, Joe, and Tea Cake.
