Searching For Voice

Since the very start of human civilization, women areconsidered to be intellectually weak and ideologically inferior. However,the situation of the black women is beyond words due to their race andspecial identity, and they turn into"the oppressed of the oppressed". Inthe patriarchal society dominated by masculine discourse, feministdiscourse has always been subjugated. They have to speak the men'svoice or remain silent. As a result, the theme of searching for voice hasnearly turned to be a tradition in women's literature. In Their Eyes WereWatching God, Zora Neale Hurston tries to manifest the hardship of theblack woman's search for voice in the whitedominatedpatriarchal culture through the portrayal of the heroine Janie. This paper aims tostudy the heroine's quest journey for voice and identity in the light ofFoucault's theories of discourse and power.