An Archetypal Analysis Of Their Eyes Were Watching God

As an anthropologist, folklorist as well as a faithful guardian of black culture, Hurston made mythic archetypes an important part of her works. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, archetypes of ancient western mythology, Bible and African folklore are all employed. Based on the Frazer’s and Frye’s theory of archetypal criticism, I will analyze those three types of archetypes in terms of archetypal characters, images, motifs and narrative pattern.The protagonist Janie is a combination of Isis in Egyptian mythology and Aphrodite in the Greek story. Correspondingly, her third husband Tea Cake is shaped as a resurrected god like Osiris-Adonis. Janie’s killing of Tea Cake and restoring him in her memory together with the repeatedly mentioned changes of season, rise and set of the sun and blooming and fruiting of the plants bear the unmistakable marks of rebirth mythology of cycling life-death theme. Her pursuit of true love and self-identity is an archetypal displacement of the western mythology of questing in specific social and historical background. The use of biblical archetype is embodied in the interpretation of the "God". Janie’s husbands Joe and Tea Cake seem to be the spokesman of God. However, their blind worship and imitation of the white and sex discrimination prove them to be false ones. By contrast, Janie Crawford is a female Moses, who returns to deliver a sermon to her disciple Pheoby after a long journey. In terms of narrative methods, Hurston borrowed a story-within-story structure from African folklore and the oral tradition of call-and-response is employed. Thus it is secure to say that Hurston rooted this novel in the soil of African-American culture and tradition.Underneath these three kinds of archetypes is Hurston’s womanist thought. The female character in the novel is full of creativity and wisdom. Audacious and adventurous, she is fully aware of the double suppression and bold enough to fight against sexism and racism. She also loves other women and some men with a humanist heart. She is African-centered and loves her own culture. It is these themes that Alice Walker inherited and formed her womanism theory.