Many literary scholars believe that Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) has been the primary influence on some of the most accomplished Black women writing in the United States today.
Topic
Hurston and Their Eyes Were Watching God
Framework
Answer a Question
Question: given how beloved Their Eyes is nowadays, why was it initially not beloved?
Explanation: at the time of its publishing, the black literary community was really looking for more protest fiction coming from authors. It wasn't until new standards of feminist theory and Afrocentric theory came along that people has a framework with which to properly appreciate what Hurston was going after.
Main Point
Their Eyes was initially not recognized for the great work it is because Hurston's contemporaries desired more overtly political stuff and the literary community didn't have the right frameworks for appreciating it.
P1 - Intro to Topic and Curious Question
We're told about this wonderfully beloved book, and in the final sentence (typically the most important Big Picture place of the passage), the author poses a question.
Any time authors pose a question, we pretty much assume it's their central purpose.
P2 - Answer to the Question (wasn't protest fiction)
The fact that the 2nd paragraph then begins with "XYZ helps to answer this question" shows us the Big Picture function, connecting back through the pronoun "this" to the question posed at the end of the 1st paragraph.
This paragraph rules out an alternate explanation for the lack of success (it was not just that it flew under the radar and wasn't considered), and then poses the real one (people didn't love it because they wanted something more politically active when it came to black activism.
P3 - How it Came to be Loved
The author double emphasizes the crucial causal difference-maker that new feminist theory (and Afrocentric theory) was to people ultimately being able to appreciate what Their Eyes was all about.