Table of Contents

Chapter 1 “Ah got de law in mah mouf”: Negotiating Respect in the Hurston Mold; Chapter 2 The Other Woman in Hurston’s Art: The Literary Foil to the Assertive Woman; Chapter 3 The Assertive Woman in Conversation and Combat: Dimensions of the Talking and Fighting Phenomenon; Chapter 4 Big Sweet, Polk County’s Queen of Talk and Song; Chapter 5 Big Sweet and the Talk Experience in the Jook; Chapter 6 Big Sweet in Polk County; Chapter 7 Laura Lee in “The Conscience of the Court”; Chapter 8 Missie May in “The Gilded Six Bits”; Chapter 9 Daisy in “Mule Bone” and The Domestic in “Story in Harlem Slang”; Chapter 10 Delia in “Sweat”; Chapter 11 Lucy in Jonah’s Gourd Vine; Chapter 12 Janie in Their Eyes Were Watching God;

About the Author

Pearlie Mae Fisher Peters