Female Empowerment By Zora Neale Hurston And Their Eyes Were Watching God

The first motif, identity, appears initially in “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” where it says, “But I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow damned up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all.” (p. 115) Here, it is obvious that the author holds no shame in her skin nor self. She is proud of who she is despite the prejudice some hold against her. Hurston identifies as colored and does not care what others think. Her identity is unwavering. Also applicable to this idea is

Feminism and gender equality is one of the most important issues of society today, and the debate dates back much farther than Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. To analyze Janie’s existence as a feminist or anti-feminist character requires a potential critic to look at her relationships and her reactions to those relationships throughout the novel. Trudier Harris claims that Janie is “questing after a kind of worship.” This statement is accurate only up until a certain point in her life, until Janie’s “quest” becomes her seeking equality with her partner. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie’s main goal pertaining to her romantic relationships undergoes multiple changes from her original goal of a type of worship to a goal to maintain an equal relationship with her husband.

In the novel Their Eyes were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston indicates the role of gender and how men are represented as superior beings compared to women. Janie represents the female protagonist in the novel and how she is affected by the gender role herself. Throughout the novel, Hurston discusses how the role of labor is represented differently for women in the eyes of men and how women are treated as if they are lower than men; and lastly how black men are treated lower than white men using black women as the source for their empowerment. Janie is categorized in the novel as a woman with very minimal rights

Zora Hurston was an African American proto-feminist author who lived during a time when both African Americans and women were not treated equally. Hurston channeled her thirst for women’s dependence from men into her book Their Eyes Were Watching God. One of the many underlying themes in her book is feminism. Zora Hurston, the author of the book, uses Janie to represent aspects of feminism in her book as well as each relationship Janie had to represent her moving closer towards her independence.

Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is packed with a plethora of themes and meanings. With each reading of the novel the most significant themes become more apparent. The main character Janie goes through a lifelong quest searching for something she can not quite put her finger on. She grows and develops as a woman and finds her voice in an era where men heavily ruled over women and during a time where black women (such as Janie) were often times not listened to. Through the novel, there are a few reoccurring themes that seem to be the main idea. The quest to find an encompassing love is one of them. Another prevalent theme in the novel was for Janie to find her voice and to do what she truly wants to do. However,

The novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston presents the theme of typical gender boundaries and their impact in African American culture during the 1930’s. Women at that time were thought to be inferior to men and considered to be the property of them, they had no voice. Realistic gender issues are shown through the main character, Janie’s and her struggling love life. Janie has to face many limitations as a result of being a black women in the 1930s. In order for Janie to have the life she wants to have, she has to face the obstacles of gender inequality. Hurston portrays typical gender boundaries by using Janie as a victim and showing what she went through.

It’s very clear that the historical events that occurred during the time period in which this book was written influenced Hurston’s writings. Her book was published in 1937 and it was based in the early 1900s. Hurston was born in 1891, and the Civil War had just ended about 30 years before she was born. Therefore, racial tension was still intact. Her book slightly shows the differences between black and white people in segregated communities. In the book, Janie’s grandmother was a slave and Janie’s mother was “lighter” skinned. Janie is considered to be a “lighter” skinned woman, and that has a big influence on how people view her in the book.

Zora Neale Hurston was one of many authors who left an impact on society, particularly black America. During the 1920’s, women were looked at as submissive and did not have many rights. She gave women a voice. Zora Neale Hurston is a remarkable author who reflects her life in most of her writing. She was a writer during the Harlem Renaissance Era. After much success, she was acknowledged as “Queen of the Harlem Renaissance.” Her literary work was not given proper recognition in the beginning because she chose to write things in a different perspective than the normal political mindset dealing with race. Hurston explored women empowerment and feminism in her writing. Hurston developed very strong, resilient women, but were placed in a

Many different controversial topics like racism and sexism are seen throughout Zora Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. For example, critics show that sexism is shown by rebellion in Janie 's life. According to Caldwell, Janie rebels against her grandmother’s beliefs and wishes and leaves her chosen husband for someone who she thinks is going to give her a better life(2). According to Curren, Janie and Tea Cakes go through racism all through life until their last move towards the horizon. They move into a new community in Florida in the Everglades where color does not matter(1-2). Because the elements of sexism and racism are so strong throughout the work, many times the themes overshadow other themes. For instance, Tracy Bealer theorizes that Their Eyes Were Watching God represents the concerns of African American love(1). Surprisingly, she is not alone in her belief. Many critics are beginning to demonstrate how Hurston’s novel can be read as a work that explores different aspects of love: fake love ,abusive love, controlling love, and true love. The relationships between Janie and her husbands demonstrate this idea that love is a driving theme of the work.

In her novel titled Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston portrays the protagonist, Janie, as a woman who strives to discover her own identity. Her novel, published in 1937, was not acknowledged until a later time as it was depicted by many critics as a “boldly feminist and Afro-American novel”. However, the literary work gained cultural significance and recognition after the civil rights movement in the United States, the which allowed Hurston’s novel to become overwhelmingly influential. Evidently, Zora Neale Hurston believed in the necessary and well-deserved values that women should adopt in society. In order to obtain these values, women had to face numerous obstacles. Being considered the weaker sex, being defined by their

Their Eyes Were Watching God, is a famous novel written by Zora Neale Hurston who grew up in the early 20th century during the Harlem Renaissance. Hurston examines the race and gender problems through the view of the main character Janie Crawford. In the novel, Janie is on a mission to find her true love. She narrates the story by providing the experience of three particular marriages. Janie experiences intense sexism in each relationship and deals with many hardships early in the book, but eventually finds her true worth of being more than just the stereotypical woman. Hurston is commonly criticized and referred to as a ‘feminist’ due to exactly what much of her work is about; Woman breaking free of the social norms imposed on them. Feminism is defined as “The advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of equality to men”. It is the belief that men and woman are equal. This novel represents that exact definition. Given the time it was written, It can be easily argued that the book is simply a feminist novel about the strength of woman and the discovery that they do not need men.

During the time of Zora Neale Hurston, the cultural and social movement of the Harlem Renaissance inspired a new black cultural identity. The Harlem Renaissance was a “blossoming of African American culture, particularly in the creative arts, and the most influential movement in African American literary history” during the early twentieth century (Hutchinson). During this time, blacks were on a journey of self-discovery, remaking their collective image to define the New Negro. Black female writers of this time, such as Zora Neale Hurston, wrote about the everyday reality and struggles that average black women endured and conquered in order to move away from “Old Negro” ideas. Hurston believed the past image of the black individual to be degrading

This article goes into the great detail of the reactions Hurston has received. It portrays the struggles she went through as an African American female writer in a white man's world. The article also describes how Hurston stood strong on her views and opinions even when those views were unpopular and how that frequently negatively impacted her career. This source provides useful information. The goal of it is to inform the reader of the social climate around Hurston and how Hurston challenged the norm.

Hurston is often referred to as the author at the forefront of the Harlem Renaissance. Often times her fiction would be about relationships between African-American citizens of south Florida, and Their

First of all, Hurston’s marxist views are shown through the racial struggles to achieve equality in the novel. Born