Analyzing the Issue of Identity in Fisher's and Hurston's Work

Running head: ANALYZING THE ISSUE OF IDENTITY IN FISHER’S AND HURSTON’S WORK
ANALYZING THE ISSUE OF IDENTITY IN FISHER’S AND HURSTON’S WORK
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ANALYZING THE ISSUE OF IDENTITY IN FISHER’S AND HURSTON’S WORK
Introduction
The essay aims to provide a discussion on the issue of identity as found in the works of
Rudolph Fisher and Zora Neale Hurston. The essay will focus on Fisher’s The Caucasian Storms
Harlem and Hurston’s How It Feels to Be Colored Me. It will first provide brief summaries of
the two stories and then analyze the issues addressed in both. In both the works, the authors have
expressed their views and perceptions about the way the black community was viewed and their
own experiences as well. The essay will make use of another prominent African writer, Chinua
Achebe’s work to understand more clearly, the issue of identity. The main thesis of the essay is
to argue that the black identity described in the work of Hurston has more positive reflection on
the issue than Fisher’s work has although both had important descriptions about racism and black
identity.
Discussion
In his work The Caucasian Storms Harlem, Fisher talks about the Harlem Renaissance,
which is, the way the white population was becoming attracted to the culture of the African-
American community. The white Americans found the Harlem culture to be fascinating and
something that they had never witnessed previously. Fisher expresses his surprise and ambiguity
at the sudden change of the audience at the most popular clubs in the Harlem. He mentions the
popular clubs like the Connie’s, Nest, Small’s, the Cotton Club, the Capitol and Happy’s, where
the crowd suddenly changed from the blacks to the whites (Fisher). Even, “the best of Harlem’s
black cabarets have changed their names and turned white” stated Fisher. Hefound it as intrusion
of the whites into the few remaining places where the black people could enjoy freely. Fisher
finds that the storming of the Harlem by the Caucasian shifted the table where now the black

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ANALYZING THE ISSUE OF IDENTITY IN FISHER’S AND HURSTON’S WORK
community including him felt as outsiders while the whites had taken over. He however states
that the fault lies within the black community as well because they had first invaded the white
American Broadway culture.
Zora Neale Hurston, in her renowned work How it Feel to Be Colored Me, provides
significant description of her first experience of realizing that her skin color was also part of her
identity. Hurston was raised in a community of all black, in Eatonville where she was addressed
as “everybody’s Zora”. However, when she moved to Jacksonville at the age of 13, she was
exposed to her racial identity. She writes, “I was not Zora of Orange County any more, I was
now a little colored girl” (Hurston). Hurston makes use of several metaphors to explain her
perception of identity, one of which is “the colored bags”. She states that people are just like
colored bags with different identities, aspirations, hopes and desires (Hurston).
While the two texts provide different experiences altogether, the theme is largely the
same – finding a new identity and struggling to cope with it. Fisher was aware of his black
identity but when he came back to the Harlem where he had spent most of his life, he was taken
aback with the new white identity. The whites now dominated the places where he used to find
his own people and he felt as an outsider in his own place. Hurston, on the other hand, was
unaware of her black identity until she moved to Jacksonville, the white dominated place
(Hurston). The realization that her black skin color was also a part of her identity was initially
confusing for her but later she came to terms with it. Fisher on the other hand, was upset with the
sudden shift and partly blamed the black community itself for invading the white culture for
which, he believed the whites invaded the Harlem – a symbol for black identity.