New Black Women's Quest For Self And Freedom In Marriage

Zora Neale Hurston, novelist, anthropologist and folklorist, is an important but controversial figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Not only was she the rare female in the Harlem setting, but she was also a product of an all-black southern town. She was so"different"from the men who were at the center of the New Negro Movement of the 1920s and 1930s that she received harsh criticism from them. Both she and her literary products were grossly devalued. However, Hurston has now undergone a substantial critical reevaluation. Alice Walker, one of the most influential contemporary black women writers, honors Hurston as"A Genius of the South"and her"literary foremother".However, Zora Neale Hurston, a woman who was bent on discovering and defining herself, wrote bravely in her own way in the belief that blacks were neither intrinsically downtrodden nor tragic. In her representative work, Their Eyes Were Watching God, she breaks with the traditional black female image as"mammy"or"prostitute"to depict her heroine as a female human being questing for self-identity and liberation concerning marriage. The protagonist, Janie Crawford, eventually liberates herself through her journey of self-discovery in spite of such obstacles as cynical neighbors, the myopia of her family and the vestiges of racism.Although most contemporary reviewers of the novel still use sociopolitical criteria focusing on Hurston's presentation of African American social life to evaluate the novel, this thesis tries to adopt feminist literary critical theories to reveal Hurston's presentation of black women's self-realization and autonomy through analyzing the heroine's suffering, awakening, and questing for freedom and self in respect of marriage.In her first two marriages, Janie registers dissatisfaction with her prescribed role and liberates herself, first by leaving Killicks and then by voicing her anger at and astute perception of Joe, because she believes in the vision of a sacred marriage. Janie's meeting with Tea Cake opens the way for her to freedom and liberation. She learns to become a player, a participant, rather than an onlooker. For the first time in her life, Janie can celebrate herself through what she learns in the call and response of a relationship of shared love, intimacy, and autonomy.Unlike the solitary but representative hero of male autobiography, Janie Crawford and Zora Neale Hurston join in voices to produce a personal narrative that celebrates an individual and collective black female identity emerging out of the search for an autonomous self. The autobiographical"I"in Their Eyes Were Watching God finds self and voice in forging a new history constructed out of the handing down of one woman's story of liberation to another. Janie becomes a feminist heroine with an assured place within that community: her voice constitutes a force for liberation within the community of women, and her life becomes an influential source through which other women will find a model for their own self-empowerment.By writing this thesis, on one hand, the writer hopes more Chinese readers could get familiar with Hurston and her literary works, learn about the African-American women's marriage and life as well as their liberation and pursuit of happiness, and meanwhile think over the marital relationships that Hurston presents to us. On the other hand, through the practice of feminism in analyzing Their Eyes Were Watching God, the writer hopes it can promote the study of feminism in China.