Janie's Escape From Freedom In Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God

Zora Neale Hurston(January 7,1891 – January 28,1960)is one of the most prominent figures in the history of African American literature in the 20 th century.Her masterpiece Their Eyes Were Watching God mainly reveals the complexity of the issue of freedom in modern times by exploring the process of Janie's quest for freedom in her three marriages.Through the interpretation of the novel based on Erich Fromm's theory of freedom,this thesis reaches the conclusion that Janie escapes from freedom while pursuing it,or in other words,Janie's pursuit of freedom is,in essence,the escape from it.Before and in the first marriage,the expectation of romantic love is roused on Janie's part.She attempts to search for it,but ends up failing.Janie's pursuit of romantic love is,in a certain sense,the quest for freedom.Nonetheless,in fact,Janie tries to escapes from freedom by submitting to marriage in order to remove loneliness brought by her individuation.And she also escapes from freedom through the evasion of her responsibilities as a wife in the marriage.Owing to her romance-oriented character and inherent desire for freedom,Janie begins to expect things on the farther horizon when she is tired of familiar people and things.Regarding Joe's invitation to live a different life in a new town as a chance,Janie elopes with him in quest for farther horizon,but she fails again.Janie's pursuit of farther horizon represents the search for freedom to a large degree,but she escapes from freedom at the same time.She is psychologically free from the bondage of the first marriage when realizing that marriage doesn't make love,but feels isolated and powerless at the same time.In order to remove the torturous feelings she escapes from freedom by submitting to Joe who seems more powerful.Moreover,in the second marriage,she shuns her responsibilities as a wife and towards herself,which represents Janie's escape from freedom and reveals that her pursuit of farther horizon is the escape from freedom essentially.In her third marriage with Tea Cake,Janie develops her potentiality and personality to some degree.At least in her mind she has obtained the freedom or the so-called independence of personality she aspires to even though she returns to and lives in Eatonville alone after shooting Tea Cake.By seeking the so-called independent personality,Janie also seems to pursue freedom.But,the fact is that Janie has been escaping from freedom in the third marriage.She first submits to Tea Cake to rid herself of lonesomeness resulting from her freedom from Joe's control after his death.Then she submits to the money gained by selling Joe's store when she and Tea Cake prepare to quit Eatonville,for she thinks money seems more powerful.Overtaken by powerlessness,fear and anxiety when she is told that Tea Cake is dying of rabies,she resorts to the escape mechanism of destructiveness,i.e.shooting Tea Cake,to eliminate the tormenting feelings.The thesis also makes an exploration into the possibility that Janie achieves real and ultimate freedom,and reaches the conclusion that lack of creativity and the capacity for love makes it impossible that Janie attains real and ultimate freedom.Janie's escape from freedom makes her pursuit a failure in the sense of both negative and positive freedom.Janie's failure in the pursuit of freedom reveals Hurston's confusion over the way out for female existence,as well as her appeal for the capacity for love,which reflects her deep humanistic concern.