An Analysis Of The Self-quest Of The Female Character In Their Eyes Were Watching God

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) is a great novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist in America. She is the prototypical female writer on black culture from the Harlem Renaissance. Their Eyes Were Watching God is her masterpiece. In this novel she creates a female character who tries to find her own identity in the white and male dominated society. The novel is full of symbols and images. The thesis focuses on the analysis of these symbols and images in order to illustrate how Zora Neale Hurston makes the protagonist explore the spiritual journey to quest for voice and self. This thesis consists of five parts, with three chapters coming between the Introduction and the Conclusion. The Introduction introduces Zora Neal Hurston's life and literary career, gives a brief account of the plot of Their Eyes Were Watching God, and lists the present critical reviews of the great novel. Zora Neal Hurston was born in 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama, and when she was a toddler, her family moved to Eatonville, Florida, the first all-black incorporated town in the United States. When she was in university, she began her writing career and studied anthropology.Hurston's life in Eatonville and her extensive anthropological research on rural black folklore greatly influenced her writing.Chapter one traces the first two phases of the protagonist's life: her growth and her first marriage. This part mainly discusses Hurston's pear tree image, which represents the protagonist's sexual awakening and her life-long search for deep emotional connection with other people. However, her pear tree is soon desecrated by the arranged marriage to Logan Killicks.Chapter two follows the protagonist's journey to Eatonville with her second husband, Joe Starks. Janie walks away from Logan Killicks to escape being treated as a"mule", which her grandmother, Nanny sees as the lot of Black women. Ironically, she becomes what she hates to become—the"mule". In this section, Hurston successfully creates the"mule"image to present the most suffocating oppression Janie ever suffers in her life. In Eatonville, women, including Janie, become the objects of men's big tales on the porch, just like the mule which is always a constant inspiration for their conversations. Obviously, the"mule", which is usually connected with brutal labor and oppression, is quite opposite to the blooming"pear tree"which emanates fragrance. By creating these apparently oppositional images, Hurston effectively demonstrates the sharp conflict between Janie's ideal and the reality.Chapter three is about her most eventful life experience with her true lover Vergible Tea Cake and her returning to Eatonville among whispers and rumors after Tea Cake's death. Hurston shows that Janie finally finds the"bee"to her"blossom"in the person of Tea Cake, finds her horizon. However, the"bee"as lover image suggests both joy (honey) and pain (the sting). This part also deals with the protagonist's recounting of her life story to her closest friend, which is the ultimate stage of her quest. The protagonist empowers herself and the other women in the community by allowing Pheoby to tell her story to the others. Having found her own voice and articulated her self, the protagonist has realized her dream under the pear tree at the age of sixteen.Finally comes the conclusion of the whole thesis, which summarizes Janie's three marriages. As she moves from marriage to marriage, she gradually sheds the oppressive white and male definitions of selfhood given to her by her grandmother, her community, and society. By fighting against and overcoming various forms of forces that antagonize her quest, Janie has grown into a mature woman with a complete possession of her self from a naive and diffident little girl; and thereby completes her metamorphosis from a silent object to a speaking subject.