Racism In Their Eyes Were Watching God

During the mid-twentieth century African Americans were at the lowermost tier of society's hierarchy. However within the black race, there was a further social division between lighter-skinned and darker-skinned African Americans. A black individual with more Caucasian features signified high status and beauty which was sought after by members of the African American community (Dibleck). In Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the author uses Janie Crawford to depict how colorism affected African Americans on both sides of the skin color spectrum. By demonstrating the attitude society (mostly men) had towards skin color, the author displays the realities of being an African American in the early 1900s and the deep

Zora Neale Hurston was an influential African-American novelist who emerged during the Harlem Renaissance. (Tow 1) During the Harlem Renaissance Hurston’s novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God, was written in southern dialect so that the African American audience can relate, mainly because Hurston could only write about what she knew. “In the case of Hurston, dialect, as a regional vernacular, can and does contain subject, experience emotion and revelation.” (Jones 4) when Hurston's novel first was released many people didn't not accept the writing for what it really was. “When Their Eyes Were Watching God first appeared in 1937, it was well-received by white critics as an intimate portrait of southern blacks, but African-American reviewers rejected the novel. (Telgen, Hile 1) In this modern day the novel is well accepted and has been called "a classic of black literature, one of the best novels of the period" (Howard 7) In "Their Eyes Were Watching God", Janie takes on a journey in search of her own identity where each of her three husbands plays an important role in her discovery of who she is.

Zora Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God follows protagonist Janie Mae Crawford’s journey into womanhood and her ultimate quest for self-discovery. Having to abruptly transition from childhood to adulthood at the age of sixteen, the story demonstrates Janie’s eternal struggle to find her own voice and realize her dreams through three marriages and a lifetime of hardships that come about from being a black woman in America in the early 20th century. Throughout the novel, Hurston uses powerful metaphors helping to “unify” (as Henry Louis Gates Jr. puts it) the novel’s themes and narrative; thus providing a greater understanding of Janie’s quest for selfhood. There are three significant metaphors in the novel that achieve this unity: the

 Overtime, no matter what kind of circumstance set up towards the term superiority, the meaning of it being expressed has not changed. It has not been expressed differently between any kind of man, even during the early 1900s era where they claimed their dominance over women. Women were put through the same overwhelming motive of repression that man (regardless of the race) had attempted to suffocate them with. It is in the hands of a women on how they take the repression that has been brought upon them by man. Portrayed in Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie is an African American women who endures the superiority of man. As an African American women she is brought up to know when she is allowed to do as she wants and when she is not. She exemplifies the standard view that society has set up for a male to have the last word in the way a female must live their life. Unlike a women who has been pampered her whole life to do as she wants whenever she wants as brought to us by Edna in The Awakening by Kate Chopin. The two must try to coexist within the superiority brought by man.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is about a young woman that is lost in her own world. She longs to be a part of something and to have “a great journey to the horizons in search of people” (85). Janie Crawford’s journey to the horizon is told as a story to her best friend Phoebe. She experiences three marriages and three communities that “represent increasingly wide circles of experience and opportunities for expression of personal choice” (Crabtree). Their Eyes Were Watching God is an important fiction piece that explores relations throughout black communities and families. It also examines different issues such as, gender and class and these issues bring forth the theme of voice. In Janie’s attempt to find herself, she

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston in 1937 was written during the time of the Harlem Renaissance, also known as the New Negro Movement. The New Negro Movement came about as a rejection of the racial segregation between blacks and whites. The black women felt this effect of racism more acutely than the black man. For centuries, Black women have been called the “mule of the world” and had been giving the status of inferior to white and the black man. Their Eyes Were Watching God encloses many elements of both racism and sexism. It is a story set in central and southern Florida. It follows the novels protagonist Janie in her search for self-awareness as she goes through three marriages. Elizabeth A. Meese has argued that one of

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston portrays the religion of black people as a form of identity. Each individual in the black society Hurston has created worships a different God. But all members of her society find their identities by being able to believe in a God, spiritual or other. Grandma’s worship of Jesus and the “Good Lawd,” Joe Starks’ worship of himself, Mrs. Turner’s worship of white characteristics, and Janie’s worship of love, all stem from a lack of jurisdiction in the society they inhabit. All these Gods represent a need for something to believe in and work for: an ideal, which they wish to achieve, to aspire to. Each individual character is thus

In both Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “Sweat” and novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, the focus is on women who want better lives but face difficult struggles before gaining them. The difficulties involving men which Janie and Delia incur result from or are exacerbated by the intersection of their class, race, and gender, which restrict each woman for a large part of her life from gaining her independence.

Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God further demonstrates the author’s perspective of colored women. The main

Hurston prides herself on who she is because of her background. Her identity of being a black woman in a world

“Their eyes were watching god” a novel that looked how societies view on women, written by Zora Neale Hurston, portrays a society where “nigger women” are considered a “mule”. Throughout the novel, the protagonist, Janie Crawford, strives to find her own voice but struggle to find it because of the expectation in the African American community. Each one of her husbands play a big role in her life long search for independence and her own voice.

Racism is defined as the belief that members of one race, based on their physical appearances, are superior to another race of people who do not match their appearances. The common conception of racism is viewed as Caucasians against African Americans, but contrary to popular belief, racism can be committed against members of one's same race. The issue of same-race discrimination that is based on the complexion one's skin color, is hardly, if ever discussed in literature before Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. In the novel, the mixed-race Janie begins her journey of finding a loving relationship and in the progress, encounters several instances of racism ignored by people such as Richard Wright, who believes that Hurston's

In the society and world we live in we all want to be accepted and feel like we belong. Zora Neale Hurston goes through trials and tribulations as being a twenty-century African American such as slavery and feeling like she belongs. Imagine every time you think you are finally happy with whom you are and it turns out that wasn’t the case. In Their Eyes Were Watching God Janie embarks on journey in search for her own identity where each of her three husbands plays an important role in her discovery of who she is.

Zora Neale Hurston had an intriguing life, from surviving a hurricane in the Bahamas to having an affair with a man twenty years her junior. She used these experiences to write a bildungsroman novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, about the colorful life of Janie Mae Crawford. Though the book is guised as a quest for love, the dialogues between the characters demonstrate that it is actually about Janie’s journey to learn how to not adhere to societal expectation.

Zora Neale Hurston is considered one of the most unsurpassed writers of twentieth-century African-American literature. Published in 1937, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God depicts the life of Janie Crawford, an African-American woman, who is in search of true love and ultimately her true self. In the novel, Janie shows us that love comes in all shapes and forms, and love is different with each person you choose to love. In the opening of the novel, Hurston uses a metaphor to say that, while men can never reach for their dreams, women can direct their wills and chase their dreams. Hurston uses this metaphor to make a distinction of men and women gender roles, and Janie went against the norms that were expected of her.