Analysis Of Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neal Hurston

The novel Their Eyes Were Watching God follows the journey of Janie, a biracial woman, who, though subjected to gender and racial prejudice, challenges dichotomous truths of the world she lives to find herself and ultimately gain self-autonomy. The feminist author, Zora Neal Hurston, contests these rigid social binarisms by exploring the role of Janie over the course of her three marriages; these relationships form the journey towards finding a “self which is not predicated on oppression” (Clarke). The protagonist, Janie Craawford, is not only subjected to prejudice because of her gender, but also because of her race; “she is caught between the worlds of black and white, creating a class of her own. In creating Janie by explicating her differences,

However, Tea Cake is able to teach Janie how to work for herself and to further defend herself from slurs from Mrs. Turner. After they have settled in the muck Janie lives with all working class blacks, where no one but Mrs. Turner is trying to be something he or she is not like Janie believed Jody had with their big house from which“the rest of the town looked like servants’ quarters surrounding the ‘big house’” (Their Eyes, Hurston 47). For it is only in fully immersing herself in the blackness of the everglades that Janie is able to find her true identity and voice. Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar assert that, “self definition necessarily precedes self-assertion: the creative ‘I AM’ cannot be uttered if the ‘I’ knows not what it is,” therefore, Janie must abandon all that she has been previously defined as in order to discover her true self (qtd in DeShazer 905). Janie turns her back on her status as Mrs. Mayor in blue satin dresses and finds a job working in the crops in mud-splattered overalls. She ignores Mrs. Turner’s “altar to the unattainable – Caucasian characteristics,” and the unseemly worship bestowed on Janie as a result (Their Eyes, Hurston 145). After all of the struggles of the everglades, Janie must literally weather the storm yet again, resulting in the death of Tea Cake and the rise of the rabid dog inside him. This beast reverses the idea of the woman as brute seen earlier in the work, reversing the beatings and abuse of Janie to a situation where she must kill Tea Cake out of mercy and self preservation (Garland). The true test of Janie’s voice is in the courtroom, when she must defend her life on the stand. She is able to “integrate voice and vision” so depict her story for the jury, who is “not there to watch but to listen. Janie’s verbal defense succeeds because she ‘makes them see’” (Clarke). Her testimony