SOURCE: Chinn, Nancy, and Elizabeth E. Dunn. “‘The Ring of Singing Metal on Wood’: Zora Neale Hurston's Artistry in ‘The Gilded Six-Bits’.” Mississippi Quarterly 49, no. 4 (fall 1996): 775-90.

In the following essay, Chinn and Dunn assert that “The Gilded Six-Bits” underscores Hurston's artistry as a fiction writer, folklorist, and historian.

“The Gilded Six-Bits” first published in Story, August 1933, is Zora Neale Hurston's last short story before she became a novelist with the publication of Jonah's Gourd Vine in 1934. In this tale of love, marriage, value conflict, and new beginnings, Hurston explores approximately one year in the life of one couple, Missie May and Joe Banks, to relate a parable that has an appeal beyond its specific historical context. As she tells how Joe and Missie May faced the challenge of a street-wise stranger named Otis D. Slemmons, Hurston uses history, folk culture, and subtle but complex characterizations to create...