Analysis Of Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale Hurston

An effective figure in the era of the Harlem Renaissance was known as Zora Neale Hurston. In 1937, the respected author, anthropologist, folklorist, and activist published her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, a novel that only took a total of seven weeks to write while visiting Haiti. Unfortunately her novel was criticized by many and liked by few. In 1960, Hurston would seemingly only mirror the same nonexistent appearance of her unmarked grave in which she had been laid to rest. Hurston had remained in her unmarked grave with her unknown “Identity” until African American writer Alice Walker possessed an interest in Hurston and her novel Their Eyes, becoming known as one of the most regarded works in African American and Women’s Literature.

The purpose of this paper will attempt to provide insight on what Hurston’s imagery, symbolism, and metaphors actually represent. Interest has also been taken in the attempt to acknowledge if Their Eyes Were Watching God was a reversal of a more normal and familiar path that a writer draws on earlier journalism to inform later fiction.
The Conscious Self
From the beginning of Their Eyes Were Watching God, the struggle with identity is presented.

The narrator and protagonist Janie is known for her use of her shifting of voice even at times becoming silent which also is supported by the unique use of symbolism and metaphors. Janie even struggled with the discovery of being “colored” (Hurston, I). Not disagreeing with the relevancy of life and love, but an considering cognitive paradigms with provide assistance in the search of ones-self, which then allows life and love to grow and become resilient and strong. An individual or ones-self has to be discovered in order to become resilient being aware of ones strengths and

abilities.
“Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf” (Hurston p. 8). Janie demonstrates in this passage that she has developed a conscious self as she is forced to marry Logan Killicks. “She knew now that marriage did not make love” (Hurston p. 25). Janie also becomes aware that unless you can identify with who you are then you cannot grow into a life in which you love. “Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman” (Hurston, p. 25). In regards the this novels focus being the basis of life and love is not entirely accurate. Critics, novelists and scholars have made it apparent in the continuants of obsession regarding, “Identity or the sense of selfhood has been one of the most complicated and ever developing notions in literary and critical studies” (Fard & Zarrinjooee, p. 92).
Quest for Identity
Janie’s quest for “identity” Hurston uses the mule, perhaps one of the most unusual symbols in Their Eyes Were Watching God was used to develop, female identity. Janie’s grandmother, Nanny’s old-fashioned insight refers to “De nigger woman is de mule of de world so far as Ah can see” (Hurston, p. 14). “Identity” can refers to one’s rights, equality and dignity, as well as an “individual’s sense of self and of uniqueness, well as the basic integration and continuity of values, behavior, and thoughts that are maintained in varied circumstances” (Barker & Barker, p. 206). Janie eventually acknowledged that dignity and respect is as important as being sexually desired. Janie as “a woman in touch with nature on an elemental, organic level, and for whom the desire for the sexual and other experiences that will shape her identity is as natural as the trees, flowers, and even the hurricane she experiences in the Everglades” (King 2008: 60).
Hurston contributed six chronicled stories regarding “Ruby McCollum, a well-to-do, married African American mother of three, who was accused of shooting and killing Dr.

C. LeRoy Adams, a popular white physician-her doctor-who had just been elected to the state legislature” to the Pittsburgh Courier (Maguire, 19). Take notice to the emphasis placed on race and how ones identity is somehow defiant in one’s conscious self. However, there is the question “recycled” language and the use of “echoes” linking Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God with the Ruby McCullum Trail. Hurston’s creativity and as she is able to incorporate African American Cultures, the search for self-knowledge, and free indirect discourse. Hurston wrote The Life Story of Mrs. Ruby J. McCollum! Interestingly, Hurston writes about the transformation from childhood and maturation, to Ruby entering woman, then going further as to Ruby’s marriage, and her affair with the “white”

physician.
Hurston viewed it as a woman’s story describing human behaviors as being ambiguous and complex. “Susan Edwards Meisenhelder, in Hitting A straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Race and Gender in the Work of Zora Neale Hurston, describes the use of Janie’s language, wants and desires in Their Eyes Were Watching God reappears in Hurston’s portrayal of Ruby, but also finds that Hurston’s representation of Ruby’s Husband, Sam McCollum, a successful farmer and store manager” (Maguire, 20). This is a high resemblance to Janie’s second husband Jody Stark. In a way a reader could relate the shooting of Tea Cake—Janie’s three husband to Ruby shooting LeRoy Adams.
Ruby McCollum’s life story was shaped by Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. Recognizing visual differences, Hurston suggests, is crucial to understanding how identity is constructed: by skin and color. Langston Hughes expressed his beliefs in an article Seeking Confirmation of the Voice and Vision: The Struggle for Janie’s Soul in Their Eyes Were Watching God. “To be oneself—to “hold” one’s “own individuality” as an African American can be