Analysis Of Their Eyes Were Watching God By Hurston

Their Eyes Were Watching God tells the story of Janie Crawford and her journey to find personal fulfillment and overcome many different struggles that are a result of her race and gender. The book is heavily influenced by the first wave feminist movement, as seen by the way it explores womanhood, race and independence. Their Eyes Were Watching God focuses on very serious and and personal issues regarding both Janie’s race and womanhood, topics which would not have been socially acceptable for women to write about and likely not have even been published before the first wave feminist movement. Before the early 20th century, women were primarily limited to writing about less serious topics, and weren’t able to get published if they wrote about

Key feminist writers like Louisa May Alcott and Charlotte Perkins Gilman were some of the first to write about their personal struggles against patriarchy in America (Snyder). These writers also included strong female characters in their stories, which was a rare occurrence in American literature, but is also present in Their Eyes Were Watching God. In the book, Janie deals with issues of womanhood and there are very heavy themes touched upon. At one point in the book, Jane comes to the realization that “Marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman”(Hurston, 21). This kind of deep personal revelation for a female character

Hurston is able to tie together the themes of race and gender in a way which was unprecedented at the time, and largely a result of African American women in the first wave feminist movement who paved the way for her. While black women were often held back from being a part of feminist movements due to racism, this didn’t stop them from campaigning for things like suffrage and other civil rights. “African American women speakers—Sojourner Truth, Maria Stewart and Mary Ann Shadd Cary among them—imagined and established themselves as literary representatives of the African American people, both within black communities and on the national stage” (Ginzberg). These authors were able to discuss discrimination through the lens of both gender and race, something which wouldn’t be done again until Hurston published Their Eye Were Watching God. Movements like the Harlem Renaissance also occured before Hurston published the book, but they were almost solely based around race, and did not touch on gender as much. In fact, Hurston was criticized by Harlem renaissance writers for not going deep enough into her racial struggles when the book came out (Miles). Their Eyes Were Watching God combined issues of race and gender in a way that was very reminiscent of The first wave feminist