The Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale Hurston

Contemporary novels have imposed upon the love tribulations of women, throughout the exploration of genre and the romantic quest. Zora Neale Hurston’s Their eyes were watching God (1978) and Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway (2000) interplay on the various tribulations of women, throughout the conventions of the romantic quest and the search for identity. The protagonists of both texts are women and experience tribulations of their own, however, unique from the conventional romantic novels of their predecessors. Such tribulations include the submission of women and the male desire for dominance when they explore the romantic quest and furthermore, the inner struggles of women. Both texts display graphic imagery of the women’s inner experiences through confronting and engaging literary techniques, which enhance the audiences’ reading experience. Hurston’s reconstructions of the genre are demonstrated through a Southern context, which is the exploration of womanhood and innocence. Whilst Woolf’s interpretation of the romantic quest is shown through modernity and an intimate connection with the persona Clarissa Dalloway, within a patriarchal society.

Companionship is a fundamental necessity for human beings to function. People thrive off of social interactions and without companionship, loneliness and alienation would prevail. Everyone wants the same things in life which are love, social acceptance and companionship, in the hope that once these things are obtained one will feel complete. In the novels Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, readers witness the characters struggle to find their identity while also trying to meet the need for partnership. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, readers see the main character Janie, grow as a women while showing that marriage does not always mean love and that until

Throughout life, everybody makes sacrifices that may become more beneficial to him or in ways they could not foresee. A sacrifice may be simply giving up an object or giving up something deeper in meaning. Their Eyes Were Watching God is a prime example of a book that reflects this theme. In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, the main character, Janie, struggles to figure out her identity and what she desires in life. As she matures in her relationships and in life, she learns to make sacrifices in order to seek what she really needs. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston illuminates Janie’s values and the text’s emphasis on self-actualization is demonstrated through Janie leaving stability with Logan to marry Joe,

Many literary works embody the concept and elements of symbolism. It can evoke striking feelings and communicate prominent ideas through its symbolic language. A profound author, Zora Neale Hurston, known for her use of symbolism in the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, conveys symbols to communicate the experiences of a beautiful yet determined, black woman named Janie Crawford. Janie endeavors to find her euphoria and her perception of self-recognition and love. What comes with her journey of her womanhood is her undying struggle in discovering her aspirations from many marriages to realize her true love that completes her. In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston uses the horizon, the pear tree, and the bee and blossom as symbols

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 late nineteenth century, the New Woman time period emerged after World War I. Women began to cast away the domestic stereotypes and they became “independent [women] who [sought] achievement and self-fulfillment beyond the realm of marriage and family” (Miller 1). Straying away from the typical image of women staying and maintaining the home, women started attending universities, receiving professional jobs, and becoming involved in politics (1). The transition of women from the domestic sphere to the public sphere is a notion Zora Neale Hurston uses in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston’s use of dominant characters in society reveals her theme that experiences and relationships are the roots of finding independence and identity despite the obscurity caused by sexism.

In this global era of evolving civilization, it is increasingly difficult to ignore the fascinating fact about love. Love is a feeling of intimacy, warmth, and attachment. Love is inevitable and it plays a vital role in human life as Janie uses her experience with the pear tree to compare each of her relationships, but it is not until Tea Cake that she finds “a bee to her bloom.” (106).

The struggle for women to have their own voice has been an ongoing battle. However, the struggle for African American women to have their own voice and independence has been an ongoing conflict. In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God Janie struggles a majority of her life discovering her own voice by challenging many traditional roles that are set by society during this time. Hongzhi Wu, the author of “Mules and Women: Identify and Rebel—Janie’s Identity Quest in ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God,’” recognizes the trend of African American women being suppressed by making a comparison between animals throughout the novel and Janie. Wu argues that there are ultimately two depictions of the mule that the reader remembers and compares both of these interpretations to Janie’s transformation throughout the novel. While Wu’s argument is sound in the fact that it recognizes certain stereotypes African American women faced during this time, Wu fails to recognize Janie’s sexuality in depth as her major push away from the animalistic pressures she has faced.

Author Zora Neale Hurston weaves many powerful symbols into her acclaimed novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston’s use of symbols enhances the reader’s understanding of the trials and tribulations along the road of self discovery for the story’s main character, Janie. Of the many symbols used throughout the novel, one in particular - Janie’s hair - is subtle yet striking as it gives us insight into Janie’s perceived social status, oppression, self identity, and her eventual independence through her self identity as a woman despite the social norms of the time period.

Janie Crawford from Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, and Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, were both two women who lived in America during two different time periods, with contrasting backgrounds and beliefs. Hester Prynne, a Puritan who came from England to Boston in the 1600’s, and Janie Crawford, a woman of color living in the deep South in an all Black community post civil war. Janie and Hester are both two outliers in their communities, and were both harassed when there actions differed from the others around them, yet neither of them rebelled and emerged above everyone else in the end.

Zora Neale Hurston was known for expressing the facets of African-American culture in her books, but her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God has elements of gender studies as well. Throughout the book, Janie’s life experiences serve as a metaphor for the historical struggle of both women and Black Americans to achieve equal rights, and various symbols throughout the book are significant in this context. Janie’s hair, in particular, is the clearest example of a symbol that represents her power and individuality. Two of the most important instances in which Hurston uses Janie’s hair as a symbol are when Janie’s hair serves as a symbol of Jody Stark’s oppression and when Janie’s hair represents her ability to have greater power than others due to its Caucasian nature.

     In Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston, the reader is given a particular glimpse into Janie's life with reference to the men she has known.  Janie's three men are all very different, yet they were all Janie's husband at one point in her life.  Although they all behaved differently, in lifestyle as well as their relationship with Janie, they all shared certain similarities.

Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, “Racism is man’s gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.” In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, characters face many acts of racial discrimination growing up while living in the South during the 1930’s. In the novel Hurston shows how a racial caste system is formed. As the story progresses, the reader is able to see how the caste system affects different characters in different ways. This shows that even if people do not experience oppression in the same way as another, it doesn’t mean that they don’t bare the same weight, but might react to the weight differently.

In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston a young girl named Janie begins her life unknown to herself. She searches for the horizon as it illustrates the distance one must travel in order to distinguish between illusion and reality, dream and truth, role and self? (Hemenway 75). She is unaware of life?s two most precious gifts: love and the truth. Janie is raised by her suppressive grandmother who diminishes her view of life. Janie?s quest for true identity emerges from her paths in life and ultimatly ends when her mind is freed from mistaken reality.

In order for an individual to effectively rebel against an established society, he or she must maintain some degree of power. If leaders or majority groups intend to revolt against an aspect of society, they simply speak or act against their issue. A member of marginalized group does not have the liberty of rebelling so directly, as he or she would be immediately isolated. In addition, taking a stand through an unappreciated aspect of one’s status in society would be futile. Therefore, an individual must find his or her value to society and utilize it as their method for rebellion. This is exemplified in both Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, as women rebel against society without using their voices. The main characters, Janie and Hester, defy gender roles through external appearances, maintaining silence, and accepting sexuality. Both Hawthorne and Hurston reveal society’s value of women’s external persona through female characters’ nonverbal rebellion.