Zora Neale Hurston's Negotiations In Their Eyes Were Watching God

Zora Neale Hurston has been highly acclaimed as a rediscovered foremother of African American writings since the 1970s, however, she was isolated and obscured for a long time at her time. Among her works, Their Eyes Were Watching God (Their Eyes hereafter) is regarded as her masterpiece, focusing on the protagonist Janie's three marriages. A love story on the surface, Their Eyes was once criticized by Richard Wright as "no theme, no message, no thought", for it is inappropriate and irrelevant to the mainstream of political and social issues. However, it has revived and received wide compliment in literary circle for the sake of Feminism.From the perspective of New Historicism, any literary work is a force interacting with the construction of society and history, which is an interconstructing process with mutual influencing, shaping, penetrating, and creating. One of the most important concepts of New Historicism is "negotiation", which refers to the flow, transformation, and balance of "social energy". The main function of literature is negotiation, and an author is actually a negotiator. As the operational mode of social energy, negotiation can be finally actualized through two dynamic social functions: subversion and containment.Their Eyes coincides with "negotiation" with its strictly thematic subversion and containment of the social ideologies such as racism and sexism, to realize her (Janie, the protagonist) self-consciousness and to spread the common feeling and achievements to the whole race, even the whole world. Therefore, the thesis aims to analyze Hurston's negotiations to observe the social reality and existence embodied in the text, and to explore how Hurston, as a black woman negotiator, negotiates on these social energies to exert an influence on the society.This thesis is composed of five parts. The first part introduces Hurston's Their Eyes, the researches on her and the novel, the concept of "negotiation", the perspective and feasibility of the present research. Chapter 1 analyzes Hurston's negotiation on sexism penetrated in Their Eyes. New Historicism considers the conflicts in daily life caused by sexual conflicts, bisexual conflicts, and even the family member relationship as "micro-politics", so that negotiation on it becomes important. This chapter carries out the study from two aspects relating to the protagonist Janie's marital and sexual experiences. One is her pursuit for harmonious marital life and true love, and the other is her pursuit for voice in the process of negotiating on sexism. Chapter 2 expounds Hurston's negotiation on racism in the novel. Political struggle between classes and races is the original meaning of power struggle, and the negotiation on it is practical and necessary. The chapter illuminates the point from two aspects: exposing the crime and jeopardy of racism, and eulogizing the native Africa-American cultural heritage. Chapter 3 elucidates the integration of the former two negotiations as a black woman protagonist both in content and in form in Their Eyes. The last part concludes the significance, limitations, and inspirations of the thesis.Negotiation embodies the author's responsibility and the complexity of the novel. The study on Their Eyes from the perspective of "negotiation" would affirm the academic significance with consequent practices providing more comprehensive understanding of Hurston and her novel Their Eyes.