Analysis Of Their Eyes Were Watching God

After reading and unpacking the novel, Their eyes were watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, I do not believe that Richard Wright is correct in his assessments. Considering the historical time period and context of his assessment, one can notice somewhat of an envious tone from Mr. Wright. He proclaims that "Her dialogue manages to catch the psychological movements of the Negro folk-mind in their pure simplicity, but that’s as far as it goes". He then goes on to further confirm his envy by accusing Ms. Hurston of deliberately trying to make the "white folks" laugh by belittling the intellectual integrity of the characters within her novel. Furthermore, he states that "The sensory sweep of her novel carries no theme, no message, no thought".

She communicates different messages through her characters within the text. The way Jody treats Janie in the story is evident of the struggles of black women even at the hands of their spouses. "They plan and they fix and they do, and then some kitchen-dwelling fiend slips a scorchy, soggy, tasteless mess into their pots and pans. Janie was a good cook, and Joe had looked forward to his dinner as a refuge from other things. So when the bread didn’t rise, and the fish wasn’t quite done at the bone, and the rice was scorched, he slapped Janie until she had a ringing sound in Their Eyes Were Watching God 85 her ears and told her about her brains before he stalked on back to the store" (pg 87). She seemed more like a servant than a wife at this point in the story. It is obvious that "the spirit of the marriage left the bedroom and took to living in the parlor. It was there to shake hands whenever company came to visit, but it never went back inside the bedroom again" (pg 86). We can assume that this is a familiar way of treatment for black women during the period of time, because of the way other characters like Walter Thomas,saying that he would kill his wife if she ever "embarrassed" him by essentially asking for help for the whole family.

Hurston style, choice of words and spelling reveals an attempt by the black community to differentiate itself from white culture. I understand that the manner in which black people spoke during this period of time was considered by some, (whites and at times black) to be tasteless and idiotic. I strongly disagree with this point of view. It seems as though it was one of the reasons why Richard wright condemned Zora Hurston 's novel, stating that her dialogues only managed to catch the simplicity of the Negro folk mind. On the contrary, I view this style of speech to be a creative yet unique outlet to Black folks during their time of oppression. The ability to invent a distinguishable "dialect" of the English language not only shows intellectual creativity but artistic