Reader's Guide to Zora Neale Hurston's

Dust Tracks on a Road

Chapters 1-9

1. John Hurston boasts on page 10 that “he had never allowed his wife to go out and hit a lick of work for anybody a day in her life.” To what extent is Lucy’s lack of “outside the home” work liberating, especially when considering that Zora has supported herself with such work?

2. Why is Hurston willing to admit that the story of her birth is all “hear-say” only after providing both the history of Eatonville and the history of her parent’s marriage (19)? In what ways does Hurston gain the reader’s trust?

3. On pages 27-28 Hurston tells the tale of her search for “the end of things.” Does the author in any way come to this end? In other words, does Hurston “see the end” and become “satisfied” (28)?

4. On page 45, Zora indicates that Joe Clarke’s porch functions as a type of community center that successfully fulfills a role that neither the Methodist nor the Baptist church fulfill adequately. Is this a critique of organized religion? Or does it suggest the necessity for both an official and an unofficial “churches”?

5. In Zora’s account of the barber shop civil rights incident on page 134, she chooses self-interest and the preservation of her livelihood over standing up for the equal rights for black people. Is she truly acting to preserve her own interests or is she supporting the interest of a greater economic system that was established by the Europeans?

Chapters 10-15

6. What do you think about Zora’s “psychic” relationship with her benefactor “Godmother, Mrs. R. Osgood Mason” described on page 144? Why do you think Zora emphasizes the “psychic” awareness between them? How does this element in Zora’s nature reflect her research in American folklore and culture?

7. Zora moves from her “psychic” relationship with “Godmother” to describe the methods by which Mrs. Mason would keep Nora in line. Frequently she would read to Zora “something of Indian beauty and restraint” (145). What is the significance of “Godmother” likening Zora to American Indians?

8. When Hurston is describing the dangers of her research job, she refers to those people she collects stories from as “primitive minds” (146). Assuming that she is studying a southern culture like the one in which she grew up, what does Hurston mean by “primitive”?

9. There is an assertion on page 151 that the black world is run by “de white man and de nigger women.” What evidence from the text supports this assertion?

10. On page 171, Hurston refers to her traveling companions as “followers of originators.” Would she be more likely to view herself as an originator or a follower? What evidence would support the claim that Hurston is an originator?

Chapters 12-16

11. Hurston comments that she is “not conscious of [her] race.” Despite whether or not Hurston is truly conscious of her race at this time, this statement seems to perpetuate Hurston’s belief that culture is definitive, race is not. Why do you think that it is so important for Hurston to insist on the primacy of culture over race at this time?

12. Zora indicates, after the incident of Bronner’s beating described on page 185, that the men of the town laugh from a sense of relief, since Bronner was not one of their “kin.” What does this incident say about racial ties? Furthermore, what does this incident convey about justice?

13. On page 199, Ethel Waters says to Zora, “You have the advantage of me, Zora. I can only show what is on stage. You can write a different kind of book each time.” What does this suggest about the role and power of literature as a means of expression?

14. In the chapter on “Love” Hurston writes that her first real love would “not have suffered so much through doubting” if he could only just realize what great things he had to offer, advice Hurston would have done well to follow herself (208). Is the couple’s self doubt indicative of an individual personality flaws or does it perhaps stem from suppression of their race as a whole?

15. Hurston writes on page 227 that she has not built ay altars” to herself even at her “glory moments.” Does Hurston attempt to keep herself at a distance in her memoirs in order to avoid this implication?

--Dawn Johnson