Their Eyes Were Watching God Research Paper Essay, Research Paper

Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching

God” Research Paper “I am Me, My Eyes Toward God” Mark Evans Zora Neale

Hurston an early twentieth century Afro-American feminist author, was raised

in a predominately black community which gave her an unique perspective

on race relations, evident in her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Hurston drew on her on experiences as a feminist Afro-American female to

create a story about the magical transformation of Janie, from a young

unconfident girl to a thriving woman. Janie experiences many things that

make her a compelling character who takes readers along as her companion,

on her voyage to discover the mysteries and rewards life has to offer.

Zora Neale Hurston was, the daughter of a Baptist minister and an educated

scholar who still believed in the genius contained within the common southern

black vernacular(Hook http://splavc.spjc.cc.fl.us/hooks/Zora.html). She

was a woman who found her place, though unstable, in a typical male profession.

Hurston was born on January 7, 1891 in Eatonville, Florida, the first all-incorporated

black town in America. She found a special thing in this town, where she

said, “… [I] grew like a like a gourd and yelled bass like a gator,”

(Gale, 1). When Hurston was thirteen she was removed from school and sent

to care for her brother’s children. She became a member of a traveling

theater at the age of sixteen, and then found herself working as a maid

for a white woman. This woman saw a spark that was waiting for fuel, so

she arranged for Hurston to attend high school in Baltimore. She also attended

Morgan Academy, now called Morgan State University, from which she graduated

in June of 1918. She then enrolled in the Howard Prep School followed by

later enrollment in Howard University. In 1928 Hurston attended Barnard

College where she studied anthropology under Franz Boas. After she graduated,

Zora returned to Eatonville to begin work on anthropology. Four years after

Hurston received her B.A. from Barnard she enrolled in Columbia University

to begin graduate work (Discovering Authors, 2-4). Hurston’s life seemed

to be going well but she was soon to see the other side of reality.

Hurston never stayed at a job for too long,

constantly refusing the advances of male employers, which showed part of

her strong feminist disposition. But Hurston was still seeking true love

throughout her travels and education. At Howard University, Hurston met

Herburt Sheen whom she married on May 19, 1927 in St. Augstine, Florida

(DA, 2). They divorced shortly after they got married because they could

not continue the idealistic dreams they had shared in their youth. Zora

Hurston’s second marriage to Albert Price III was also short lived. They

were married in 1939 and divorced in 1943 (DA, 2). By the mid-1940s Hurston’s

writing career had began to falter. While living in New York, Hurston was

arrested and charged with committing an immoral act with a ten-year-old

boy. The charges were later dropped when Hurston proved that she was in

another country at the time the incident allegedly took place (Discovering

Authors, 3). Hurston already was witnessing the rejection of all of her

works submitted to her publisher, but the combined effects of the arrest

and the ensuing journalistic attack on her image doomed the majority of

her literary career. She wrote to a friend: “I care nothing for writing

anything any more… My race has seen fit to destroy me without reason,

and with the vilest tools conceived by man so far” (Discovering Authors,

4). In approximately 1950 Hurston returned to Florida, where she worked

as a cleaning woman in Rivo Alto. She later moved to Belle Glade, Florida,

in hopes of reviving her writing career. She failed and worked as many

jobs including: newspaper journalist, librarian, and substitute teacher

(Baker, http://www.prodigy.com/ pages.html/chronology.htm). Hurston suffered

a stroke in 1959 which demanded her admittance in the Saint Lucie County

Florida Welfare Home. She died a broken, penniless, invalid in January

1960 (DA, 5).

All of Hurston’s trials built the basis

for her best work. Therefore, the work that has denoted her as one of the

twentieth century’s most influential authors did not come until after she

had graduated from college. However, the literature she composed in college

was by no means inferior. She was a defiant free-spirit even during her

early college career. While working on an anthropological study for her

mentor, Franz Boas, she was exposed to voo doo, which she quickly embraced.

She was deeply interested in the subtle nuances that voo doo had left scattered

throughout Afro-American culture. She also adopted this religion, which

contrasted completely with her Baptist up-bringing , because it gave her

a new artistic sense. Voo doo freed her from the institutional restraints

that she experienced as a black woman in a white oligarchy (Hinton, 4).

Her belief in voo doo appeared in almost all of her works, including Their

Eyes Are Watching God, where Zora’s fictitious Eatonville seems to be controlled

by supernatural forces (Hinton, 5). Hurston used her artistic talent to

incorporate her cultural anthologies into her fiction by combining many

of the traditions and cultural tinges she discovered while tracing Black

culture into the fictional town of Eatonville (Hemenway, 13).

Hurston’s most acclaimed work , Their Eyes

Were Watching God, has been read, adored, rejected, reviewed, and badgered

by many literary critics and uneducated readers alike. “In a book rich

with imagery and black oral tradition, Zora Neale Hurston tells us of a

woman’s journey that gives the lie to Freud’s assertion that ‘the difficult

development which leads to femininity seems to exhaust all the possibilities

of the individual’” (Reich, 163). This statement is manifested in Their

Eyes… through Hurston’s vivid imagery and uncanny sense of her own needs.

The plot centers around Janie, a character some critics say is mimicked

after Hurston herself, and her journey toward self-discovery. As a victim

of circumstance, Janie becomes a victim of her own position. She is raised

to uphold the standards of her grandmother’s generation; she is taught

to be passive and subject to whatever life gives her. But as Janie grows

older she begins to realize that the world may not like it, but she has

got to follow her desires, not suppress them. The story begins in her childhood,

with Janie exalting material possessions and money, two things she has

never had an abundance of. Janie marries twice, the second marriage being

bigamous. She realizes that she must be self-reliant. She experiences all

of these things in a totally Black community, where society is motivated

by the most basic human instincts.

Hurston in-bedded her own life experiences

into Their Eyes… with her clever incorporation of prominent themes in

society. While avoiding social prejudice, Zora seamlessly integrates her

own racial-discovery into her novel. The reader does not feel that she

is projecting social prejudices or personal attacks; but rather imparts

a tender, gentle revelation to Janie that she is Black. Janie is raised

with white children in the home of the family her Grandmother works for.

She grows up playing, laughing, and enjoying the things that the white

children do, so much so, that she is included in a family portrait. When

she goes to look at the picture, she doesn’t see herself- but rather a

dark girl with long hair. “Where is me? Ah don’t see me,” she complains

(Their Eyes Were Watching God, 6). She had not realized till that moment,

she was not white.

To further the story-line, Hurston takes

Janie on a journey of self-discovery with a slightly feminist twist. Throughout

the novel Janie is confronted with the compelling desire by others to make

her a “proper” woman. She is taught to be submissive. She is taught to

have no opinion and no initiative. However, she learns over time, she has

the growing feeling that something is missing, possibly her lack of self-confidence.

She soon becomes her own person, casting her given lot aside, and seeking

a new one on her own path, discovering her dreams and her identify. In

this novel, Hurston expresses many of her opinions on race relations. She

is often criticized for her lack of confrontational forces in Their Eyes…,

however she explained that she has clearly defined her position on race

relations in her books. She has done it in a way that no group can actually

ground a claim that her work is catered to any one audience. Many Black

critics at the time of publication criticized Their Eyes… for its lack

of racial awareness, while White critics, such as Otis Ferguson, claimed

that the book is “.. absolutely free of Uncle Toms…” (DA, 2). Most contemporary

critics feel Hurston’s novel is the culmination of all of Black culture.

Hurston was often criticized for her writings. She was quick to reply:

I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul,

nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the

sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them

a lowdown dirty deal and whose feeling are all hurt about it…. No, I

do not weep at the world- I am to busy sharpening my oyster knife (Discovering

Authors, 4).

Hurston showed her true opinions on race

relations in her autobiography Dust Tracks on the Road when she declared

black artists should celebrate the positive aspects of black American Negrohood.

And that is exactly what Hurston did through her innovative characters

in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Janie is raised by her grandmother. Grandmother

sets Janie up for her journey of self-discovery. Janie’s grandmother set

her goal for Janie’s life by saying, “Ah wanted you to look upon yo’ self.

Ah don’t want yo’ feathers always crumpled by folks throwin’ up things

in yo’ face” (Hurston, 14). Her grandmother has a desire to see Janie in

a ’safe’ place, or in other words, a place where she will never have to

want for anything. Janie loved her grandmother and wanted to please her

even though she was not sure she agreed with all of the plans her grandmother

had made. “Janie had been angry at her grandmother for having ‘taken the

biggest thing God ever made, the horizon… and pinched it in to such a

little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her grandmother’s neck

tight enough to choke her’” (Reich, 4). Her grandmother accomplishes this

by arranging for Janie to marry Logan Killicks. Logan Killicks is a farmer

who marries Janie shortly after she completes school. Killicks is the first

antagonist that Janie encounters in the story. He is there for one purpose,

to destroy Janie’s new sense of self-awareness. Janie does not love Logan

nor does he love her. Janie is constantly looking for another horizon.

She soon finds that horizon in Joe Starks.

Joe appears in Janie’s front yard one day.

He says the ’sweet’ things that Janie wants to her. Janie leaves Logan

the next day, and therefor takes another step in her journey. Joe is a

man who is concerned with little except power. He wants it, and he is going

to use Janie to get it. He is cruel to Janie, and stomps out all of her

free will. He builds his town of Eatonville as the newly elected mayor,

crushing all in his path, making many enemies, including Janie, along the

way.

Teacake could be Janie’s knight in shining

armor. He comes to her aid. He wants her to do the things she desires.

“Sing, dance, have fun with me,” seems to be what Teacake is offering her-a

new direction. Teacake is a good ol’ boy. He takes Janie to the Everglades.

He lets her tell stories. However, she becomes what she set out to, only

when she leaves Teacake. When she leaves Teacake Janie returns to Eatonville

and the book ends where it began, as Janie finishes or dialogue with her

friend Pheoby. When she walks back in to town, no longer ‘Ms. Mayor,’ as

Joe was fond of calling her, Janie is truly her own person. She is proud

and sure of her self and her place under the sun. There are so many literary

and social implications contained within Their Eyes Were Watching God,

that many criticisms have been written on particular aspects of Hurston’s

work. One of the best criticisms, though not nationally published, demonstrates

some of the true experiences that Hurston incorporated into her work. Hurston

conjures powerful images by giving voice to all her disparate elements

while simultaneously respecting the autonomy of each. She conjures images

from the kitchen, from the rural landscape of Florida, and from the elemental

forces of nature. and tempers her conjuring with the objectivity of the

scholar while freely adorning it with the poetic beauty of black vernacular

(Conjured into Being, 1). The unknown author of this passage gave an elegant

style to the point that Hurston used strong sensory and oratory descriptions

to make her text come alive. She tried to pull from all the areas of her

personality to develop something on paper, the way she experienced it in

life. She showed her philosophy on how a person should live their and get

the most out of it. In her autobiography she wrote: I had stifled longing.

I used to climb to the top of one of the huge chinaberry trees which guarded

our front gate, and look out over the world. The most interesting thing

that I saw was the horizon… It grew upon me that I ought to walk out

to the horizon and see what the end of the world was like. (Dust Tracks

on the Road, 36), (Conjured into Being, 1). Like Hurston, Janie longs for

the horizon. She finds that she must struggle to overcome the many obstacles

society throws in her path.

Hurston’s frequent use of emotional metaphors

is part of the power contained in her fiction. She uses nature to convey

her emotions.

The sun is a major image in the texts of

Hurston, and the passage above illustrates her fascination with light.

Ever since her mother told her to ‘jump at de sun’ when she was a young

girl, Hurston self-confidently refused any feelings of victimization She

like her character Janie, was not ‘tragically colored.’ In her early short

story, “Drenched in Light,” a wealthy white woman comments on Isis, the

happy child of Hurston’s your: ‘I would like just a little of her sunshine

to soak into my soul{spunk, 18}’(Conjured into Being, 4).”

This is one of many examples of Hurston’s

emphasis on emotional identification in her fiction. She also believed

strongly in the elements of the earth and how they showed a symbol for

each emotion. “The elements of sun and fire cleanse and renew her. The

wind, another elemental image, is first heard ‘picking at the pine trees.’

Pine trees, which Janie associates with young black men, like TeaCake,

who are often seen ‘picking’ guitars” (Conjured into Being, 16).

The wind is commonly associated with love,

the soul, and femininity. She expresses her feminist philosophy with the

description of women not as weak creatures needing to be cared for, but

as strong capable peers.

Bryan D. Bourn, with help of Dr. Laura

Zlogar of the Wisconsin-River Falls University discusses the role of Afro-American

women in Their Eyes Were Watching God. He explores the role of African-American

women in early 1900’s society by examining Hurston’s writing. Historically,

the job of women in society is to care for the husband, the home, and the

children. As a homemaker, it has been up to the woman to support the husband

and care for the house; as a mother, the role was to care for the children

and pass along cultural traditions and values to the children. These roles

are no different in the African-American community, except for the fact

that they are magnified to even larger proportions. The image of the mother

in African-American culture is on of guidance, love, and wisdom… Understanding

the role of women in the African-American community starts by examining

the roles… in Afro-American literature. (Bourn, 1). Bourn goes on to

state that the role of the mother-daughter relationship is expressed vividly

in Their Eyes… by the relationship that develops between Janie and her

Grandmother. “The strong relationship between mother and child is important…

the conflict between Janie’s idyllic view of marriage and her [grandmother's]

wish for her to marry into stability… show how deep the respect and trust

runs” (Bourn, 1). This excerpt tries to show the way that Janie, by marrying

Logan, does what her grandmother wants out of respect. This is just one

of the idealistic ways that Hurston expresses her opinions on society and

life, not to exclude racial situations.

“Does Hurston ‘owe’ her race anything”

(Hinton, 2)? As previously discussed, many of Hurston’s contemporaries

criticized her lack of racial issues in her work. A good question to ask

is “does Hurston’s fiction further racial equality?” (Hinton). Kip Hinton

discusses Hurston’s approach to race relations in comparision to the common

school of thought during her time. Alain Locke crticized Hurston for avoiding

racial confrontations (Hinton, 2). All of Hurston’s critics said that she

gave in to the stereotype of a typical African-American. This in turn furthered

the sense of inequality present in society. The critics who held this view,

according to Hinton, subscribed this style of confrontation: “They believed

only by preaching to the white reader about how wonderful blacks really

were and how horrible discrimination was, could equality be achieved” (Hinton,

2).

This argument is really a feeble one. Hinton

claims that this argument lacks reason because “telling a racist he’s a

racist won’t make him change” (Hinton, 2). If the reader can not read Hurston’s

work and see that she cared deeply about equality, dealing with it in her

special way, then they will never change. The most important thing to keep

in mind when you think of Zora Neale Hurston is that she was a literary

genius. She may have been a woman, and an African-American, that is why

someone wrote, “Zora would have been Zora even if she’d been an Eskimo”

(Hinton, 3). That is why she was so clear on her definition of race relations.

She believed that equality was achieved by showing the oppressor the wonderful

things in life, not constantly pointing out the bad. Hurston put it best

when she cried out, “at certain times I have no race, I AM ME.”