The Life of American Women in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their...

Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God is a novel illustrating the life of an African American woman that finds her voice through many trials and tribulations. At the heart of the story, Hurston portrays a protagonist who moves from a passive state to independence, from passive woman with no voice who is dominated by her husband to a woman who can think and act for herself. Hurston achieves the greater theme of Their Eyes Were Watching God, of self-expression and independence through her use of three basic southern literary elements: narrative structure,  ¬Ã‚ ¬Ã‚ ¬Ã‚ ¬Ã‚ ¬allegory, and symbolism. A brief inspection of these three basic elements will reveal how Their Eyes Were Watching God achieves its inspiring effect. Zora Neale Hurston†¦show more content†¦She learns to control her voice after she finds it. Similarly, the narrator is silent in exposed places, neither revealing why Janie isn’t upset with Tea Cake’s beating nor disclosing her words at the trial. Although Janie returns to Eatonville alone, she returns as a strong, new woman. Hurston’s narrative advocates both freedom from sexist and racist harassment, and the rejection of community and cultural values that enforce such harassment. Hurston also presents an imaginative consciousness that speaks of wandering and independence in a time when women were somewhat restricted. In the end, Janie, like Hurston and many African American women of the twentieth century, becomes a woman who can think and act for herself. Zora Neale Hurston also uses allegory to convey the theme of the novel. He uses it when Janie’s second husband, Joe Starks, forces Janie to wear a head-rag when in public. Because Janieâ €™s hair is so attractive to men, Joe’s jealousy makes his wife bind her hair, constraining Janie’s femininity and stifling her identity. In an attempt to keep Janie all to himself, he suffocates her and loses her completely. When Joe dies, Janie wastes little time in burning all of the head-rags she owns. Here, the head-rag represents the constraints imposed on women by men in power, and how Joe obstructed Janie from finding her voice. When Janie gets attacked by theShow MoreRelatedThe Harlem Renaissance By Zora Neale Hurston925 Words   |  4 Pagesmovement in the 1920s that led to the evolution of African-American culture, expression through art, music, and literary works, and the establishment of African roots in America. Zora Neale Hurston contributed to the Harlem Renaissance with her original and enticing stories. 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Zora had an unusual life; she was a child that was forced to grow up to fast. But despite Zora Neale Hurston’s unsettled life, she managed to surmount every obstacle to become one of the most profound authorsRead More Contrasting Native Son and Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay4128 Words   |  17 Pages  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   This paper examines the drastic differences in literary themes and styles of Richard Wright and Zora Neale Hurston, two African--American writers from the early 1900s. The portrayals of African-American women by ea ch author are contrasted based on specific examples from their two most prominent novels, Native Son by Wright, and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Hurston. With the intent to explain this divergence, the autobiographies of both authors (Black Boy and Dust Tracks on a Road) are