What are the motifs in The Eatonville Anthology by Zora Neale Hurston?

The art of storytelling is a recurring idea. Storytelling is an integral part of community life in Hurston's Eatonville. Literary scholars and critics alike have come to understand that not only is the act of telling a story an art, but it is also an inherent part of the modern African-American tradition. The oral tradition of storytelling usually reflects the lack of a system of concrete signs for the spoken word. Sometimes the language itself does not have an alphabet or other concrete images for communication; at other times, the people using the language do not have access to these symbols. In the case of African-American slaves, most never learned to write. Thus, their initial decades in the United States were recorded and preserved largely through oral traditions.