Hurston Theme Analysis

Hurston uses small symbols such as the store to display how Janie has gained some independence. After Janie marries Joe they open up a store together. Being the only general store in the town they experience a lot of customers. Often Janie is found managing

Joe doesn't like this so he criticizes Janie daily about how she looks he makes her put her hair up. In the store Janie cuts tobacco for Steve Mixon but she cuts it wrong and Joe gets angry, and he yells at her “I god amighty! A woman stay round uh store till she get old as Methusalem and still can’t cut a little thing like a plug of tobacco! Don’t stand dere rollin’ yo’ pop eyes at me wid yo’ rump hangin’ nearly to yo’ knees!” (Hurston 92-93). Janie gets mad also and replies, “Stop mixin’ up mah doings wid mah looks, Jody. When you git through tellin’ me how tuh cut uh plug uh tobacco, then you kin tell me whether mah behind is on straight or not”(Hurston 86). Janie sticks up for herself after years of Joe controlling her and beating her. Janie waxes stronger and learns that the way she feels is just as important as the way Joe feels or anyone else. While Joe is dying Janie goes into his room and tells him that he isn't the same person that she ran away with that he changed for worse. After he dies she does something for herself, Hurston writes “The young girl was gone, but a handsome woman had taken her place. She tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair. The weight, the length, the glory was there. She took careful stock of herself, then combed her hair and tied it back up again”(103-104). Janie letting her hair down is symbolic of her freedom and independence she is done with Joe

Throughout the novel Hurston revealed how Janie’s freedom and life was represented by her hair, like the freedom she lost going into her loveless marriage, having lost her freedom again right after gaining the freedom from Logan and then gaining it when Jody dies as shown when she lets her hair down, and in the end when she reflects on the dream she got to live as she combs out her hair to show

Instead of treating Janie like the beautiful woman that she is, he uses her as an object. Joe was a man who “treasured [Janie] as a posession” (Berridge). Joe’s demanding nature suppresses Janie’s urge to grow and develop, thus causing her journey to self-realization to take steps backward rather than forward. In Janie’s opinion, “he needs to “have [his] way all [his] life, trample and mash down and then die ruther than tuh let [him]self heah 'bout it” (Hurston 122). It is almost as if Janie loses sense of her own self-consciousness due to the fact that she becomes like a puppy being told what to do by her master. The death of Jody is actually a positive thing. Joe’s controlling nature stifles Janie’s inner voice. While married to Jody, Janie became closer to others, however, she did not become closer to herself. Being on her own again gave her another chance to embark on her journey and realize who Janie Crawford really is.

What I attempt to show in the above quotation is that through free indirect discourse Hurston is able to effectively express the inner and outer voice of Janie. This voice is the voice of a woman who is

     Community is an important concern in both black and women's literature. The racist and patriarchal nature of American society, what Morrison refers to as the master narrative of our culture, places blacks and women and especially black women in a position of powerlessness and vulnerability. Communities serve as a protective buffer within which black women must function in order to survive. However both Hurston and Morrison identify and criticize how the patriarchal nature of the master narrative is present in black communities. The male-female hierarchy in the black community mirrors not only the patriarchy of the dominant white culture, but also the white-black

Janie’s outward appearance and her inward thoughts contrast following Joe’s death. She finally frees herself from his control only after he dies as she, “…tore off the kerchief…and let down her plentiful hair” (87). In freeing her hair, Janie begins to free herself from others’ control and social norms. However, she chooses to keep it tied up until after Jody’s funeral in order to keep appearances that she is grieving his passing in front of the townspeople. However, on the inside, Janie doesn’t really feel any sorrow and “sent her face to Joe’s funeral, and herself went rollicking with the springtime across the world” (88). It is only after Joe’s elaborate funeral that Janie shows her first act of freedom by burning “every one of her head rags and went about the house next morning with her hair in one thick braid swinging well below her waist” (89). She chose to let her hair be free from his domination, thus freeing herself from him overall and allowing herself to move onto the next journey in her life.

Joe’s first instance of controlling behavior is met with radio-silence by Janie, indicating that she favors Joe’s company more than she desires to voice her own opinions. She fails to express her displeasure regarding Joe’s comments, and instead strives to maintain appearances, “[making] her face laugh” even though it “[isn’t] too easy” as the citizens of Eatonville watch her (Hurston 43). While Janie appears blasé to appease the crowd, she is upset that Joe prevents her from speaking, he also takes the choice from her. With Joe, Janie is “nothing more or less

Hurston uses the narrative consciousness in Their Eyes, to characterize those who are silent and lack their own voice, by doing this Hurston gives depth, to those whose voices, are heard. Throughout the entire novel, the development of the male voice seems to parallel the development of Janie's. The men in Janie's life have voices, and it is by her relationships with these men, that Janie's voice gets stronger. Janie becomes more self confident with each relationship she endures. Hurston, by using the consciousness narrative, is actually speaking for Janie; the narrator and Janie are like one. This might be the reason that Hurston gives little voice to Janie's character. Janie is not silenced in the novel, she is expressed through the narrative. Which if the reader does not close read, the reader will not comprehend this aspect of Hurston's novel.

Mary Helen Washington writes a critical essay on the book And their eyes were watching god. In this essay she mentions how Janie has strong and independent thoughts, but lets the men in her life control her. Ultimately, therefore, Janie is a very dependent women. The men in Janie’s life prevent her from standing up for herself. Her husband's treat her as if she is their property. Throughout the story it is hard for Janie to find the courage to stand up for herself. Washington argues that Janie never really finds this courage. She says “Even after Janie acquires the power of speech that allows her to stand up to Jody, Hurston continues to objectify her so that she does not take action” (pg.31). This indicate a point in the story

Zora Neale Hurston breathes life into “Spunk” by contrasting African American slang with the formal, educated tone of the narrator to emphasize adversity and express culture in the South. Hurston’s most memorable moments in her childhood were a result of “Skillful story-tellers [that] could hold their listeners spellbound for hours, with tales that combined elements of African tradition, the history of slavery, and current events,” (Bily). Oral storytelling was a news source and form of entertainment for those living in poverty. In “Spunk,” it is evident that Hurston’s goal is to combine the setting she grew up in with her fondness for written literature when Elijah Mosley cries, “‘Looka theah, folkses!’… slapping his leg gleefully.

Hurston introduced Joe as a scrawny, small man who was afraid and scary. Joe was married to Lena but the narrator does not discuss what happened to their relationship. The reader can only assume that Joe and Lena had marital problems due to her being around another man. Joe became envious that his wife was with another man. Everyone thought that Joe could not stand up for himself. When Joe allowed Spunk to humiliate him in front of Lena, she was turned off by Joe. At first he was afraid to confront Spunk for taking his wife from him, but Joe was still in love with his wife Lena and wanted her back. After Joe heard that his wife was clinging on another man’s arm around town, he actually got the courage to confront Spunk. “Well, Ah’m goin’ after her to-day. Ah’m goin’ an’ fetch her back. Spunk’s done gone too fur.”(Joyce 1925, 502). Due to Joe being jealous and upset with Lena and Spunk’s relationship, Joe became violent towards Spunk and the guys started to fight. Joe’s goal was to get Lena back and get rid of Spunk. Joe ended up getting shot by Spunk because the author wrote, “See mah back? Mah close cut clear through. He sneaked up an’ tried to kill me from the back, but Ah got him, an’ got him good, first shot, said Spunk.” (Hurston, 1925, 504). After Joe died he started to haunt Spunk, coming back to life in a form of a bobcat. Joe wanted to get payback on Spunk because Spunk killed him and

Janie Crawford is surrounded by outward influences that contradict her independence and personal development. These outward influences from society, her grandma, and even significant others contribute to her curiosity. Tension builds between outward conformity and inward questioning, allowing Zora Neal Hurston to illustrate the challenge of choice and accountability that Janie faces throughout the novel.

At the point where Janie finds herself starting to self-actualize, Hurston says, “Of course he could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking”. The word feeling is brought up because even though Tea Cake died, Janie can chose when she can stop feeling him on the inside because she has taken control of herself and her feelings without anyone there to help her. This shows that Janie will never physically be able to have Tea Cake again with her, but that doesn’t stop her from thinking about him whenever she wants. This is a big part of Janie self-actualizing because she doesn’t need people to be there for her to still care for who they are. The word thinking is showing JanieJanie starts to become an individual who doesn’t need others to feel happy about herself. Without the journey it took for Janie to reach self-actualization, she wouldn’t be able to achieve it because every person offered something new to her which in the end the best thing ended up being for her to just be alone. She can still be with other people, but when she’s alone she can still be happy too. At this point, she has reached self

Modernism is a literary style of American literature that begins in the 1920s and was ongoing until World War II. World War I, industrialization, The Great Depression, and World War II influenced many authors. These authors exemplify disillusion, loss of faith, loss of hope, and feeling of futility within their works. Hurston’s literary work, “Sweat”, a story of a black woman and her abusive husband describes Delia’s struggles against society, and the little power she has against her husband Sykes. Searching for comfort and happiness is a main focal point of Modernism within this story. Sykes does this and tries to be a snake by his evil qualities, physical abuse, and being unexpected like a rattler.