Hurston was renowned for her portrayal of assertive women in her fiction, folklore, and drama. This book explores her development as an assertive woman and outspoken writer, emphasizing the impact of the African American oral traditions and vernacular speech patterns of Harlem, Polk County, and her hometown of Eatonville, Florida on the development of her personal and artistic voice. The study traces the development of her assertive women characters, the emphasis upon verbal performance and verbal empowerment, the significance of "down home" Southern humor, and the importance of an ideology of assertive individualism in Hurston's writings and analyzes changes in Hurston's personal style.

Hurston articulated an assertive spirit and voice that had a profound influence on the development of her professional reputation and on the course of African American literature, folklore, and culture of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. This study combines literary criticism and biography in tracing her often controversial career. This wide-ranging book focuses upon links between Hurston's fiction and nonfiction, and includes analysis of her plays, which have often been neglected in studies of her writing.(Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York-Buffalo, 1989; revised with new introduction)