Moses and nation-building

Zora Neale Hurston's Moses, Man of the Mountain and Edward Said's Freud and the Non-European

Author: Farebrother, Rachel

Source: Comparative American Studies, Volume 5, Number 3, September 2007 , pp. 333-356(24)

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Abstract:

This article examines the significance of the representation of Moses as an Egyptian in Zora Neale Hurston's Moses, Man of the Mountain and Edward Said's Freud and the Non-European. Pairing Hurston and Said continues Said's project of seeing authors 'contrapuntally', so exposing imperialism as a neglected, if submerged, context for Hurston's response to nationalism in Moses. I argue that Hurston's novel cannot be read as a straightforward critique of race-based nationalism. Although Moses is of a different ethnic group to the Hebrews he leads, Hurston's portrayal of his rule is haunted by imperialism, in which one ethnic group exploits another. In this sense, Moses, Man of the Mountain bears the signs and strains of her struggle against racialist thinking.

Keywords: FRANZ BOAS; MOSES; ZORA NEALE HURSTON; ANTHROPOLOGY; SIGMUND FREUD; NATIONALISM; COLONIALISM; EDWARD SAID

Document Type: Research Article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/147757007X223990

Publication date: 2007-09-01

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