An Analysis Of The Artistic Techniques Of Their Eyes Were Watching God

Zora Neale Hurston was one of the most preeminent women writers in twentieth-century Afro-American literature. Though she was ignored by her contemporaries and literary critics for many years, people can never afford to neglect her great talent in literary creation. With the upsurge of feminism and feminist movement, Zora Neale Hurston's bright talent for writing was re-excavated. In 1975, Alice Walker published In Search of Hurston in the magazine of Women which sprung up the renaissance of Zora Neale Hurston. Deeply rooted in Afro-American culture, Hurston's works were regarded as paradigm of Afro-American woman literature with her distinctive blackness and prolific characteristics of folk customs. Her works have exerted profound and far-reaching influence on many generations of writers such as, Ralph Ellison, Tony Morrison and Alice Walker, etc. These writers turned to Hurston's works as sources of creation. They repeated, imitated and revised Hurston's narrative strategies in terms of text structures, narrative modes, language styles as well as black customs.As an anthropologist and a folklorist, Zora Neale Hurston spared no efforts in carrying out extensive anthropological researches in many parts of the world. She had collected abundant of folklores of local areas, mastered diversified vernaculars and Afro-American oral narration traditions which, to a large extent, provided her with invaluable literary materials for her later works. In her creation, Hurston utilized local dialects, religious rituals and Afro-American oral narration traditions, in ways of subtle and various to illustrate the coming to consciousness of Afro-American females and the search of self-value.Their Eyes Were Watching God was considered to be one of the most representative masterpieces of Hurston which manifested Hurston's perfect combination as a creative artist and an experienced folklorist. This novel recounted the growth and self-affirmation of an Afro-American female from a weak and ignorant girl to an independent and strong-willed woman. It aimed at revealing the self-value and strength of black female, thus to arouse black female's consciousness of regaining freedom and equality through the mastering of their own destinies. Their Eyes Were Watching God was said to be completed by Hurston within seven-week period in Haiti, which was a love story inspired by her relationship with Punter. Hurston's several times of unsuccessful marriages were reflected from the growing up process of heroine Janie. The autobiographical structure endowed Their Eyes Were Watching God with the structure of a bildungsroman. Moreover, delineation of the story changed from omniscient third-person narrator to first-person narrator freely and frequently, which enabled Hurston to shift back and forth from the novel effortlessly and granted the novel with distinctive characteristics of modernism.Many scholars and literary critics at home and abroad attached great importance in analyzing Their Eyes Were Watching God with respect to feminism theme, symbolism writing techniques, narrative strategies and absence of woman's voice. After having read the original copy of Their Eyes Were Watching God and acquired related literary theory, the writer of the thesis finds that an analysis of the artistic techniques of Their Eyes Were Watching God based on the literary theory of narratology and focalization is quite valuable. Therefore, the thesis aims to analyze the artistic techniques of Their Eyes Were Watching God in terms of narrative structure, narrative voice, narrative point of view and narrative language to discuss the significance of these narrative strategies in deepening central theme and shaping characters.This thesis is composed of three parts: The introduction, the body and the conclusion.The Introduction reviews Zora Neale Hurston's creative sources and composing standpoint. Besides introducing the main content and significance of Their Eyes Were Watching God, this thesis will survey the research status of the novel both at home and abroad. The writing purpose, source of materials, research methods, practical and theoretic meaning of analyzing the artistic writing techniques of Their Eyes Were Watching God will as well as be stated.The body includes four chapters.Chapter One introduces Narratology and Focalization based on which the analysis is carried out. Narratology, as a quite new discipline, is a way of denoting the study of narrative, narrative structure and the ways which affect our perception of literary works. Furthermore, the narrative point of view as an important mean of revealing the central theme serves as a bridge between the author and the readers. While the author manifests the novel from a distinctive perspective and presents her feeling to the outer world, the readers will give a response through this special narrative mode and realize the author's emotional feeling extensively. Gerard Genette's focalization on narrative point of view provides a new way for analyzing the perspectives of novel and other scholars'improvements on focalization further strengthen the meaning of focalization in guiding reader's perception of literary works.Chapter Two makes a thorough analysis of the narrative structure of Their Eyes Were Watching God from three aspects.Firstly, this chapter analyzes the story-within-story structure. Chapter one and the last three pages of chapter twenty constitute main frame of the novel, depicting the current situation of the heroine which reduces the distance between readers and the text. The embedded part, or more exactly, the story-within-story part, is the self-revelation of heroine Janie. Janie's recount of self-experience in first person retrospective narrative point of view to her best friend enforced the creditability of the story. Secondly, this chapter discusses the similar structure of Their Eyes Were Watching God to the traditional folktales. Janie, the heroine of Their Eyes Were Watching God refused to live in sorrow, fear or foolish romantic dreams. After having gone through three marriages, she acquired self-voice and became an independent woman. At last, she returned hometown. The narrative mode of Janie's growth is quite similar to traditional folktales, in which the narrative plot goes like this: The hero left home, fought and then returned to his hometown. Lastly, the thesis focuses on the bildungsroman structure of Their Eyes Were Watching God. The three marriages and psychological mature process of heroine Janie were quite similar to the protagonist's growing up process in bildungsroman. Thus, Hurston endowed Their Eyes Were Watching God with the meaning of bildungsroman.Chapter Three discusses the narrative voice, analyzing the significance of utilizing first person narration and third person narration in the novel. This chapter deals with the narrative point of views based on the theory of focalization. The constantly shifts of narrative voice and point of view serve to diversify the delineation and enlarge the reading spaces. This part gives an analysis of the narrative voice and point of view firstly, and then discusses contribution of the change of narrative person and point of view to the narrative text. Chapter Four surveys the narrative language. As an experienced anthropologist and folklorist, Hurston's most writing materials were resulted from her extensive anthropological research. She used the language of black folks to make the expression more precise and ransacked black sermons to present the image of black folks vividly before readers. The combination of formal language and oral dialogue enabled the narrator to come in and out of the narration freely. This Chapter will discuss the meaning of the combination of two language style. Another striking success of the novel lies in its use of free indirect speech to involve voice of the characters and the narrator together, which contributed in revealing the inner status of characters and displaying theme.The Conclusion summarizes the distinctive artistic techniques employed by Hurston and emphasizes the realistic significance of these techniques employed by Hurston in Their Eyes Were Watching God on modern society. Meanwhile, this part will as well emphasize the contribution of rich folklore experience of Hurston on her literary creation. With the development of feminist movement, Hurston has become a metaphor for the black woman writer to search for Afro-American tradition.