Moses, Man of the Mountain

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1939

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Author’s Introduction-Chapter 9

Chapters 10-19

Chapters 20-30

Chapters 31-40

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

The Book of Thoth

Within Hurston’s political allegory, the Book of Thoth—a difficult-to-obtain book containing all of human knowledge—acts as a powerful symbol of literacy and technical training. As a young boy, Moses first hears of the Book of Thoth from his mentor, Mentu. Mentu claims that “when you read only two pages in this book you will enchant the heavens, the earth, the abyss, the mountain, and the sea” (56). Significantly, the Book is hidden within six boxes and guarded by a deathless snake—precautions that suggest that the knowledge it contains is dangerous in the hands of the people. As Mentu warns, anyone who reads it “would be too powerful for the palace” (57). Ultimately, Moses does find and read the Book of Thoth as an adult, and as a result “a divine power [is] with him” (117). This divine power leads Moses to God in Mt. Sinai, and ultimately to free the Hebrews from Egypt.

Because the Hebrews correlate with enslaved Africans in Hurston’s political allegory, the Book of Thoth functions as a symbol of literacy and radical self-reliance. Enslavers in the American South fought literacy among the enslaved in order to prevent them from working together and sharing their experiences. Like the Book of Thoth, literacy was difficult to obtain for enslaved people. However, literacy also had a liberating power and armed leaders with knowledge that empowered them in their work towards freedom. Moses’s quest to find the Book of Thoth and use it to free others reflects the importance of literacy and self-reliance in the constant struggle for freedom.

The Sun

Throughout Moses, Man of the Mountain, references to the sun appear as a recurring motif related to the theme of The Presence of God’s Power in Nature. In the early chapters of the novel, repeated references to the Egyptian sun-god Horus (12, 41, 51, 74) demonstrate the importance of natural imagery in ancient Egyptian beliefs. In describing the heat of the sun as Moses and Ta-Phar wait to begin their mock battle, Hurston writes that “the hawk of Horus, the sun-god, mounted to his noon perch and flew down the western sky for two hours, his blazing eyes fixed on the horizon” (51). In this passage, Hurston takes on the perspective of her Egyptian characters, for whom the sun was a physical manifestation of the god Horus’s presence on Earth. Describing heat and the passage of time in this way reframes the familiar image of the sun for Hurston’s readers, reflecting her thematic interest in The Presence of God’s Power in Nature.

Later in the novel, the image of the sun becomes closely associated with the God of Moses. When Moses speaks to God, he is transformed: “Seven suns [circle] around him and the moon [is] under his feet,” while his right hand “glow[s] like the firmament at sunset” (216). Hurston repeats this image nearly word for word at the end of the novel, just before Moses’s death. Although Moses seeks to convert the Hebrews from their faith in the gods of Egypt to the God of Mt. Sinai, the close association of both gods with suns is a reflection Hurston’s interest in the presence of God in nature.

Eyes

References to eyes appear throughout the novel as a recurring symbol of power. Moses’s eyes are repeatedly depicted as a conduit of divine power, while the eyes of others—such as Ta Phar and Aaron—reveal attempts disguise or conceal their true nature and feelings. When Moses returns from Sinai to find the Hebrews worshipping a golden calf, he makes direct eye contact with Aaron, who is leading the service. Aaron feels as if “the eyes of Moses [have] gutted him” (222). The image of Moses’s eyes gutting Aaron foreshadows Moses’s later stabbing of Aaron on Mt. Hor. In the confrontation at the altar of the golden calf, Aaron tries to fight back, but “the eye of Moses [forbids] him” (224). In this scene, Moses’s eyes act as symbol of the divine power of God. Aaron’s inability to resist the power of Moses’s eyes is a reflection of his spiritual failings.

Elsewhere in the book, Hurston’s depictions of eyes suggest that they reveal attempts to conceal power. When Moses confronts Ta-Phar after the death of the first-borns, in which Ta-Phar’s own son and grandson were killed, Ta-Phar appears deceptively fragile: “His haggard face was a grim, ashen mask. But his eyes glittered like an asp at bay” (164). The disparity between Ta-Phar’s seemingly distraught appearance and his active, sinister eyes reflects his fickle nature and spiritual corruption, which he seeks to keep concealed.