Summary

Danticat begins this essay by discussing Zora Neale Hurston’s childhood, saying Hurston was “fascinated by the idea that being rooted or tied to the earth could empower even a god” (133). Danticat then quotes Hurston speaking about her mother’s death; Hurston says of her mother, “She looked at me, or so I felt, to speak for her. She depended on me for a voice” (134).

Continuing with this idea of voice, Danticat analyzes Hurston’s voice, saying it “both personalize[s] and mythologize[s] death,” concluding that “in order to explain death to herself, Zora made a story out of it” (135). Danticat defines this genre—daughters writing about their mothers’ death—as “momoirs” (135). She speculates that the writers of these momoirs have been “orphaned, except by our words, which we eventually turn to in order to make sense of the...