The Outsider-Within Representations in Zora Neale Hurston’s and Georgia Douglas Johnson’s Folk Drama

Abstract

The study aims to explore the shared experiences of Georgia Douglas Johnson and Zora Neale Hurston, incorporating the elements of African-American folklore in American theatre to negotiate the circumstances of black women. In addition, it scrutinizes how Johnson and Hurston utilize folk drama to navigate the political and artistic conflicts in the early 20^th century, delving into the intricate interplay of ethnicity, gender, politics, and aesthetics. The study examines two folk plays from the Harlem Renaissance era: Johnson’s Plumes (1927) and Hurston’s Color Struck (1926). Both plays illustrate that the African-American drama probes into the struggles of black women as outsiders-within, challenging the prevailing racism and classism faced by black women in the Southern states. By analyzing the construction of identity in the experiences of black women through Patricia Hill Collins’s Black feminist theory, the study shows how Hurston and Johnson successfully depicted the position of women as ‘outsiders’ in their literary works, with their folk drama centering on women’s experiences and culture, employing black folklore to highlight the social protest of Black feminist theatre.