Javascript required
Skip to content Skip to sidebar Skip to footer
Home / Haitian Nanny Beats Baby Girl for Throwing Up

Haitian Nanny Beats Baby Girl for Throwing Up

1937 novel past Zora Neale Hurston

Their Optics Were Watching God
TheirEyesWereWatchingGod.JPG

Offset edition
Author Zora Neale Hurston
State United States
Publisher J. B. Lippincott

Publication engagement

 September 18, 1937
OCLC 46429736

Their Eyes Were Watching God is a 1937 novel by American writer Zora Neale Hurston. It is considered a classic of the Harlem Renaissance,[1] and Hurston's all-time known work. The novel explores master character Janie Crawford's "ripening from a vibrant, only voiceless, teenage daughter into a woman with her finger on the trigger of her ain destiny".[2]

Gear up in central and southern Florida in the early 20th century, the novel was initially poorly received. Since the tardily 20th century, information technology has been regarded as influential to both African-American literature and women'south literature.[3] Fourth dimension included the novel in its 2005 list of the 100 all-time English-linguistic communication novels published since 1923.[4]

Plot synopsis [edit]

Janie Crawford, an African-American woman in her forties, recounts her life starting with her sexual enkindling, which she compares to a blossoming pear tree kissed past bees in spring. Effectually this fourth dimension, Janie allows a local boy, Johnny Taylor, to osculation her, which Janie'south grandmother, Nanny, witnesses.

Every bit a young enslaved woman, Nanny was raped by her white enslaver, then gave birth to a mixed-race daughter she named Leafy. Though Nanny wanted a better life for her girl and even escaped her jealous mistress later the American Civil War, Leafy was later raped by her schoolhouse teacher and became meaning with Janie. Soon after Janie'southward nativity, Leafy began to drink and stay out at nighttime, eventually running abroad and leaving Janie with Nanny.

Nanny, having transferred her hopes for stability and opportunity from Leafy to Janie, arranges for Janie to ally Logan Killicks, an older farmer looking for a wife.[five] However, Killicks doesn't love Janie and wants only a domestic helper rather than a lover or partner; he thinks she doesn't do enough around the farm and considers her ungrateful. When Janie speaks to Nanny about her want for dearest, Nanny, too, accuses Janie of being spoiled and, soon later, dies.

Unhappy, disillusioned, and lonely, Janie leaves Killicks and runs off with Jody (Joe) Starks, a glib man who takes her to the all-black community of Eatonville, Florida. Starks arranges to buy more land, establishes a general store, and is shortly elected mayor of the town. All the same, Janie before long realizes that Starks wants her every bit a trophy wife to reinforce his powerful position in town and to run the store, fifty-fifty forbidding her from taking part in the town's social life. During their xx-year marriage, he treats her as his property, criticizing her, controlling her, and physically abusing her. Finally, when Starks'due south kidney begins to neglect, Janie says that he never knew her because he would not let her be free.

After Starks dies, Janie becomes financially independent through his estate. Though she is beset with suitors, including men of means, she turns them all down until she meets a young drifter and gambler named Vergible Woods, known as "Tea Cake". He plays the guitar for her and initially treats her with kindness and respect. Janie is hesitant because she is older and wealthy, simply she somewhen falls in love with him and decides to run away with him to Jacksonville to ally. They motility to Belle Glade, in the northern part of the Everglades region ("the muck"), where they find work planting and harvesting beans. While their relationship is volatile and sometimes trigger-happy, Janie finally has the marriage with dearest that she wanted. Her image of the pear tree blossom is revived. All of a sudden, the area is hit by the great 1928 Okeechobee hurricane. Tea Cake is bitten by a rabid dog while saving Janie from drowning and becomes increasingly jealous and unpredictable. When he tries to shoot Janie with his pistol, she fatally shoots him with a rifle in self-defense and is charged with murder.

At the trial, Tea Cake's black male friends show up to oppose her, only a group of local white women make it to support Janie. After the all-white jury acquits Janie, she gives Tea Block a lavish funeral. Tea Block's friends forgive her, request her to remain in the Everglades. However, she decides to render to Eatonville. Equally she expected, the residents gossip about her when she returns to town. The story ends where information technology started, every bit Janie finishes recounting her life to Pheoby.

Themes [edit]

Gender roles [edit]

The novel explores traditional gender roles and the relationship between men and women. Nanny believes that Janie should marry a man not for love but for "protection"[half-dozen] Janie's outset ii husbands, Logan Killicks and Jody Starks, both believe Janie should be defined by her spousal relationship to them. Both men want her to be domesticated and silent. Her spoken language, or silence, is defined past her physical locations, most frequently. For example, Starks forces her silence at the store, a public—and therefore, male infinite at the time. He says, "... Muh wife don't know nothin' bout no speech-makin'. Ah never married her for nothin' lak dat. She'south ah woman[,] and her place is in de habitation."[7] Janie is also forbidden from socializing with the townspeople on the porch. Tea Block is Janie's last hubby, who treats her as more of an equal than Killicks and Starks did, past talking to her and playing checkers with her. Despite this, Tea Block does hit Janie to testify his possession over her. Thus, Janie's life seems defined by her relation to domineering males.[ citation needed ]

Masculinity and femininity [edit]

Scholars argue that, in Their Optics Were Watching God, the role of masculinity is portrayed through the subordination and objectification of women. In a reflection of postal service-slavery Florida, blackness men are subordinate merely to their white employers and adhere to white patriarchal institutions of masculinity[8] in which women are held in a positive social regard only if they are attractive, are married, or have attained financial security via previous marriages. Black women, specifically, face greater oppression, equally their ain struggle for independence was considered counter-productive to the greater fight for equality for blackness Americans as a whole.[9] Nanny explains this hierarchical structure early on to Janie when she says, "Beloved, de white man is de ruler of everything...white man throw downwards the load and tell de nigger human being to choice it up. He picks it up because he has to, but he doesn't tote it. He hands information technology to his womenfolks."[x]

In the book, men view women as an object to pursue, acquire, and control through courting, manipulation, and even physical force. Janie's journey for the discovery of her self-identity and independence is depicted through her pursuit of true love—her dream—through marriages to three different men. Each of the men she marries conforms in some mode to gender norms of the day. The role of femininity is portrayed through the symbolism of property, mules, and elements in nature. Women in the volume are considered a bays prize for males, to simply look pretty and obey their husbands. The illustration of the Mule and Women is stated repetitively in the book and is used to represent the gender role of women. Janie's Nanny explained to Janie at a young age how African-American women were objectified as mules. "De nigger woman is de mule uh de earth and so far as Ah tin see."[11] Mules are typically bought and sold past farmers, usually to exist used to work until burnout. Later in the volume, Janie realizes that Nanny'southward warnings were truthful when she identifies with an abused mule in Eatonville. She sees herself as a working brute with no vocalization, at that place for the entertainment of others and at the expense of her own complimentary will. This identification is shown in the volume when the townspeople are laughing at the mule that Jody had eventually bought and rescued (in an try to manipulate Janie). However, Janie doesn't express joy alongside the townspeople as she is shown to empathize with the mule ("Everybody was having fun at the mule-baiting. All only Janie") and she feels disgusted by the situation. The mule represents the feminine gender role in the story past which men suppress and degrade women who are stereotyped equally unable to remember for themselves and needing constant guidance from men. These stereotypes "become a chain on the American women, preventing them from developing individuality, and from pursuing their personal happiness"[12] and ultimately what forces them to mold into their gender role.[ commendation needed ]

Janie Crawford [edit]

Janie Crawford is the primary character of Their Eyes Were Watching God. At the starting time of the story, she is described equally naive, beautiful, and energetic. However, as the story progresses, Janie is constantly under the influence and pressure of gender norms within her romantic relationships. Equally she navigates each of her relationships with men, Janie ultimately loses her confidence and self-image, conforming to roles that the husbands desire her to fill.[ citation needed ]

In Janie's first relationship, she was given every bit a married woman by Nanny at an early age and was told that love may come with union but that it was not important. Even so, every bit fourth dimension passed, Janie was unable to love Logan. "She began to cry. 'Ah wants things sweet wid mah wedlock lak when you sit under a pear tree and recall.'"[eleven] As time passed on, Logan began forcing Janie to ostend to a traditional lifestyle, telling her that he would buy a mule for her so that she could piece of work. However, Janie was potent-minded and Logan made niggling progress on changing Janie. Janie raised her voice, only withal, she remained susceptible to suppression and abuse. "Yous ain't got no item place. It'due south wherever Ah need yuh. Git a motility on yuh, and dat quck."[ citation needed ]

And so, in Janie's second relationship, she left Logan Killicks in an endeavor to pursue a better futurity with her new husband, Joe Starks. Joe was the Mayor of Eatonville and accomplished incredible wealth, placing Janie in a higher status than her peers, since she was "sleeping with dominance, seating in a college chair". Janie believed that her life would change for the better. However, she was confined in the roles of a housewife and was made to be Joe's prized possession. "The male monarch'southward mule, and the male monarch's pleasance is everything she is at that place for, aught else".[thirteen]

In Janie's 3rd and last relationship, she was able to feel true dear, on her own terms, with her third husband Vergible "Tea Cake" Forest. Janie was older than Tea Block by nearly twelve years. He loved and treated her improve than her previous husbands. While she was no longer strictly confined by the gender roles placed upon her by her previous husbands, she was still hands influenced and manipulated by Tea Cake. Janie was forced to shoot and kill Tea Cake in self defense force afterward he adult rabies.[ commendation needed ]

Logan Killicks [edit]

Logan Killicks is Janie'due south starting time married man. Shortly after Nanny observes Janie sharing her first kiss with a boy named Johnny Taylor—and therefore showing signs of puberty—she informs Janie that she was promised to Logan Killicks, a widower, from a young historic period for her own well-being and protection. Logan owns a subcontract with 60 acres of land. He grows and sells potatoes likewise as chops and delivers forest. He has one mule to plow the fields and decides that he needs to add another to the stable. Though Janie hopes that information technology volition grow, there is never whatsoever gentleness or love between her and Logan. She is 15 or sixteen years erstwhile when she is married off to Logan and after, she grows to resent her grandmother for selling her off, like a slave.[14] Their marriage is purely based on logic, work and convenience— he is a man with property and he needs a wife while Nanny is an aging adult female raising her grandchild alone, and she needs to secure Janie's time to come. There is lilliputian regard for Janie'due south happiness as Nanny believes Logan to be a good husband based on his financial prospects lone.[fifteen]

Logan has traditional views on spousal relationship. He believes that a man should exist married to a woman, and that she should be his property and work hard. Everyone contributes to disposed the family state. He believes Janie should work well from dawn to dusk, in the field likewise as the house, and practice as she is told. She is analogous to a mule or other working beast.[16] He is not an bonny man by Janie's clarification of him and seems to exist aware of this. As such, his prospects at finding a mate based on attraction and his historic period are slim, thus the reason for approaching Nanny early on about an organization of marriage to Janie when she comes of historic period.[xiv]

During the grade of their brief matrimony, Logan attempts to subjugate Janie with his words and attempts to brand her work across the gender roles in a typical spousal relationship. He does not appreciate her streaks of independence when she refuses his commands and he uses her family history to try to manipulate her into being submissive to him.[viii] At 1 point, he threatens to kill her for her insubordination in a desperate and final attempt to command her.[ citation needed ]

Joe "Jody" Starks [edit]

Joe "Jody" Starks is Janie's 2nd husband. He is charismatic, mannerly and has big plans for his future. Janie, being young and naive, is easily seduced by his efforts to convince her to leave Logan. Ultimately, Joe is successful in gaining Janie's trust and so she joins him on his journey. Joe views Janie equally a princess or royalty to be displayed on a pedestal. Because of her youth, inexperience, and want to observe truthful love, Jody easily controls and manipulates her into submitting to his male person authorisation.[ improper synthesis? ]

Joe Starks is a man who is strong, organized and a natural leader. He has coin from his time working for white men and he now aims to settle in a new customs made upwards of African-Americans, a identify in its infancy where he can make a name for himself. Joe quickly establishes himself as an administrative figure around the town which has no determined name or governance of any kind when he and Janie go far. With the money he has, he buys land, organizes the townsfolk, becomes the owner-operator of the full general store and post function, and is eventually named Mayor of Eatonville. Joe strives for equality with white men,[17] especially the mayor of the white town across the river from Eatonville. To attain this status he requires nice things: the largest white house, a nice desk and chair, a gilded spitoon, and a cute wife. He is a larger-than-life character and during their fourth dimension in Eatonville, he has grown an equally big abdomen and taken upwards the addiction of chewing dainty cigars, both of which cement his status with the locals every bit an important man around town. Joe, like most of the men in the volume, believes that women are incapable of thinking and caring for themselves. He likens them to children and livestock that need constant tending and direction. "Somebody's got to call back for the women and chillen and chickens and cows. God, they sho don't recall none fo themselves."[18]

Jody is a jealous man, and because of this he grows more than and more possessive and controlling of Janie. He expects her to dress a certain way (buying her the finest of clothes, with tight corsets) and requires that she wear her long, beautiful hair—symbolic of her free spirit and femininity— covered and up in a bun, so as not to concenter too much unwanted attention from the other men in Eatonville. He considers her long pilus to exist for his enjoyment lonely.[nineteen] [20] He excludes her from diverse events and the social gatherings in Eatonville to farther his dominance and control over her. He restricts her from being friendly with the other townswomen, requiring her to behave in a separate and superior manner.[21]

Vergible "Tea Cake" Woods [edit]

Tea Block is Janie'southward third and concluding hubby. He is her ideal partner in her search for true love. He is charismatic, mannerly, funny, and artistic with a tendency to embellish stories. To Janie, he is larger than life, wise, and genuinely cares for her. Tea Block is loving towards Janie and respectful of her as her own individual person. Unlike her previous 2 marriages, Tea Cake never stops trying to make her happy. He is more willing to share with her what he has learned from his own experiences and show her the greater world outside of her ain existence. He enjoys beingness with Janie and playing the role of a teacher. Through Tea Cake, Janie learns to shoot a rifle, play checkers, and fish among other activities.[22]

However, Tea Cake shows tendencies of patriarchal potency and psychological abuse towards Janie.[15] He isn't ever truthful with her and shows some of the same characteristic traits exhibited by Joe Starks and Logan Killicks. For instance, he keeps her from working with the remainder of the people down on the muck because he believes she is above common folk. Consequently, until Janie asserts herself with Tea Cake and joins the others in working,[23] she gains a scrap of a reputation for thinking herself better than everyone else.[ citation needed ]

In a show of male say-so in their relationship, Tea Cake takes $200 from Janie without her knowledge or permission and spends it on a squeamish guitar and a lavish party with others around town without including her in the festivities. While accounting for his spending of her money, he tells Janie that he had to pay women that he deemed unattractive $2 each to keep them from the party.[24] He then gambles the remaining amount to brand the money back and excludes her from the gambling scene. What differentiates him from Joe in this regard is that Janie regularly confronts him and he acquiesces to her demand that she not be excluded from aspects of his life.[ citation needed ] [ improper synthesis? ]

Another tendency that Tea Block shares with Joe is his jealousy and need to maintain some amount of command over Janie. When he overhears another woman speaking poorly to Janie most Tea Cake and attempting to ready her up with her blood brother, Tea Block decides to have matters into his own hands. First, he discusses with Janie, a chat he overheard between her and Mrs. Turner, a local café possessor. He criticizes Mrs. Turner's appearance (like Janie, she is mixed-race) and and then successfully executes an elaborate plan to ruin her establishment. Finally, he slaps Janie around in front of Mrs. Turner and others to testify them that he is in charge and to assert his ownership over her.[20]

In the finish, Tea Cake plays the office of hero to Janie when he saves her from drowning and being attacked by a rabid dog. Tea Block himself is bitten and eventually succumbs to the disease. Not able to think rationally and enraged with jealousy, he physically attacks Janie and she is forced to shoot and kill Tea Cake. Therefore, she effectively ends her emotional zipper to the men in her life and the want to seek out and realize her dream of truthful love.[ citation needed ]

Liberated woman [edit]

Janie is constantly searching for her own voice and identity throughout the novel. She is often without a voice in relation to her husbands every bit she will non fight back. Janie is also run into situations that make her feel that her value as an African-American adult female is little to none. She is seen as singled-out from other women in the novel, who follow traditions and do non notice a life contained of men. Janie'due south physical appeal becomes a footing of Starks and Tea Cake to have jealousy and belittle her looks. Starks orders Janie to cover her long pilus every bit other men are attracted to it. Similarly, Tea Cake remarks on Janie's lighter skin and her appeal to Mrs. Turner's brother. But Janie begins to feel liberated in her marriage with Tea Cake because he treats her as an equal and generally does not look down on her. As a result, she loves him more than she did the other two spouses.[25]

Janie does not find complete independence as a adult female until later on the decease of Tea Cake. She returns to Eatonville with her pilus down and she sits on her own porch chatting with her friend Pheoby. By the end of the novel, she has overcome traditional roles and cultivates an image of the "liberated blackness woman."[25]

Liberation from racial history [edit]

Janie grew upward under the intendance of her grandmother, Nanny. Her experiences as a slave and freedwoman shaped the way Nanny saw the earth. She hoped to protect Janie, by forcing her to marry Logan Killicks, although he was older and not attractive. Janie followed her grandmother's advice merely constitute that it wouldn't exist every bit easy to love him every bit Nanny had suggested. African Americans believed in wedlock during the early 20th century because they had been prevented from such legal protection under slavery.[26] Unhappy in her marriage to Logan, Janie runs off with Starks and commits bigamy. After the death of Starks, Janie meets Tea Cake and they fall in love. Her community thought he was a broke nobody and were suspicious of him. Tea Cake wasn't the perfect human, but better than expected by the customs of Eatonville.[ citation needed ]

Liberation from domestic violence [edit]

During the early on 20th century, the African-American customs asked African-American women to set aside self-realization and self-affidavit values. They imposed male-dominated values and often controlled who women married.[27] Janie suffered domestic violence in her marriages with Joe Starks and Tea Block. Starks initially seemed to be good for Janie, but later trounce her several times, in an endeavor to exert his authorization over her.[28] Despite her hubby's physical and emotional abuse, Janie did non complain, behavior that was approved by the townsmen. Domestic abuse was not entirely disapproved past the African-American community, and men idea it was acceptable to command their women this way.[29] Afterwards Starks' death, Janie was freed from his abuse. Tea Cake showed his respect of her.[30] Although Tea Cake was not a perfect husband, he was the only hubby of hers that gave her the chance to beloved.[ citation needed ]

Liberation from sexual norms [edit]

The early 1900s was a fourth dimension in which patriarchal ideals were accepted and seen as the norm.[31] Throughout the novel, Janie on multiple occasions suffers from these ideals. In her relationships, she is being ordered around past the human, but she did not question it, whether in the kitchen or bedroom.[32] Janie in many ways expresses her growing distance from the sexual and social norms. After the death of Starks, Janie goes to his funeral wearing black and formal clothes. But for Tea Cake'south funeral, she wears workers' blue overalls, showing that she cared less for what society idea of her as she got older. In improver, critics say that Tea Cake was the vehicle for Janie's liberation.[33] She went from working in the kitchen and indoors to working more "manly" jobs, such equally helping in the fields, fishing, and hunting. Tea Block offered her a partnership; he didn't see her as an object to be controlled and possessed through marriage.[ commendation needed ]

Value of women in a relationship [edit]

Throughout the novel, Hurston vividly displays how African American women are valued, or devalued, in their marital relationships. By doing then, she takes the reader on a journey through Janie's life and her marriages. Janie formed her initial thought of marriage off the beautiful paradigm of unity she witnessed betwixt a pear tree and a bee. This image and expectation sets Janie up for thwarting when it came time to marry. From her spousal relationship to Logan Killicks to Tea Block, Janie was forced to acknowledge where she stood every bit a powerless female in her relationship.[34]

Starting with her matrimony to Logan, Janie was put in a identify where she was expected to prove her value with hard work. On top of all the physical labor expected from her, Janie endured constant insults and concrete beatings from her male person counterparts. Hoping for more value, Janie decides to get out Logan and run off with Joe Starks. Still, in reaction to this decision, she's simply faced with more than beating and devaluement. Joe expected her stay in the abode, piece of work in the kitchen, and when she was in public, Janie was expected to cover her pilus and avoid chat with the locals. With ane terminal hope, Janie engaged in a marriage with Tea Block, a younger man, and things finally seemed to expect upward for her, even though she was nonetheless expected to help in the fields and tend to her womanly duties. Overall, throughout her marriages, Janie experienced the hardships that nearly African American women went through at that fourth dimension. From the physical labor to the concrete beatings, Janie was presented with the life that a woman was expected to live. [See detailed statement and synopsis in Addison Gayle, Jr.'s article, "The Outsider"[35]]

Janie was able to experience like a woman in her third marriage with Tea Cake. In her first marriage with Logan she was beingness controlled by her husband. She didn't feel similar a woman in her commencement marriage. She didn't feel whatever love or affection either. In her second marriage with Jody, she was able to experience independence as a woman. With Jody's death, she became in charge of the store and his property. She was able to experience liberty and an economic stable life. She learned virtually ownership, self determination, self ruling, and home ruling. In her last marriage with Tea Cake Janie experienced true dear. Only she besides learned who she was as an African American woman. Throughout her marriages she learned how to value herself as a woman, an African American adult female, and a hard working adult female.

The novel is written in dialect and vernacular linguistic communication that expresses information technology equally a story of a black adult female from Southern United States. Throughout the novel, Janie serves both as protagonist as well equally occasional narrator, detailing the events of her life, her three marriages, and the backwash of each, that eventually lead to her return to Eatonville. This is done with two contrasting writing styles, one in standard English prose when the narration is done in third person, and the other making apply of black Southern colloquial in dialogue. The theme of having a voice and beingness able to speak out is a prevalent theme throughout the novel. During her commencement two marriages to Logan Killicks and Joe Starks, Janie is subjugated and held under their rule, the quondam comparing her to another mule to work his field and the latter keeping her in a powerless position of domesticity. Throughout both marriages she finds herself without the ability to speak out or to express herself, and when she tries she is usually shut down. This leaves her feeling like a "heat in the route," the isolation taking its toll until she finally confronts Joe and attacks his ego with a verbal attack against his manhood. The effect this takes is that information technology leaves Joe resenting Janie and in event destroys what is left of their spousal relationship. When Janie marries Tea Cake, we see how linguistic communication affects the fashion Janie begins to experience almost herself. The mode Tea Cake speaks to her allows her to find the freedom in her ain voice and to begin to acquire how to use it. We are able to run across how language helps Janie grow every bit a person in one case she learns that her voice is her power.[ citation needed ]

Race [edit]

While the novel is written almost Black people in the South, it is non primarily a book virtually a racist lodge. Nanny is the first character to discuss the effects of slavery. "Ah was born dorsum due in slavery so it wasn't for me to fulfil my dreams of whut a woman oughta be and to practice. Dat'due south one of de concord-backs of slavery."[36] The novel is mostly concerned with differences inside the blackness community. Starks is compared to the main of a plantation, as he has a huge house in the center of the town. "The rest of town looked like servants' quarters surrounding the 'big house'.[37] Starks becomes a effigy of authority because he has money and is adamant to create the outset black town. Only his plans seem to result in a town where people impose their ain hierarchy. "Us talks virtually de white man keepin' u.s. down! Shucks! He don't have tuh. The states keeps our ain selves down."[38] When Janie marries Tea Cake and moves to the Everglades, she becomes friendly with Mrs. Turner. This woman compliments Janie on her low-cal skin and European features, from her mixed-race ancestry. Turner disapproves of her marriage to Tea Cake, as he is darker skinned and more "African" looking.

Inspirations and influences [edit]

Possibly the strongest inspiration for Hurston'south writing of Their Optics Were Watching God was her one-time lover Percival Punter.[39] Hurston writes in her autobiography that the romance betwixt Janie and Tea Block was inspired by a tumultuous love affair. She described falling in beloved with the human equally "a parachute jump".[twoscore] Like Janie in the novel, Hurston was significantly older than her lover. Like Jody, Punter was sexually dominant and sometimes violent.[41] Hurston wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God three weeks afterwards the tumultuous determination of her relationship with Punter. She wrote in her autobiography that she had "tried to embalm all the tenderness of [her] passion for him."[42] With this emotional inspiration, Hurston went on to paint the motion picture of Their Optics Were Watching God using her personal feel and research as a template.[ commendation needed ]

In 1927, a decade before writing Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston traveled southward to collect folk songs and folk tales through an anthropological research fellowship arranged by her Barnard College mentor Franz Boas.[43] The all-blackness Eatonville of Their Eyes Were Watching God is based on the all-black town of the same name in which Hurston grew up. The boondocks'south weekly announced in 1889, "Colored People of the The states: Solve the great race problem past securing a home in Eatonville, Florida, a Negro city governed past negroes."[44] The hurricane that symbolizes the climax of Hurston's story also has an historical inspiration; in 1928, "a hurricane ravaged both littoral and inland areas of Florida, bringing torrential rains that broke the dikes of Lake Okeechobee nearly Belle Glade".[45] Scholars of the African diaspora notation the cultural practices common to the Caribbean, Africa, and the U.s.a. in Their Eyes Were Watching God.[46]

Hurston wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God while living in Belle Glade, at the home of Harvey Poole, who, as manager of i of the local labor camps, informed her tremendously about bean picking, and the labors of African-Americans on the muckland. The book was also written while on a Guggenheim Fellowship in Republic of haiti to inquiry Obeah practices in the West Indies.[47]

Reception [edit]

Initial reception [edit]

Hurston'south political views in Their Eyes Were Watching God were met with resistance from several leading Harlem Renaissance authors.

Novelist and essayist Richard Wright condemned Their Eyes Were Watching God, writing in a review for New Masses (1937):

Miss Hurston seems to take no desire whatever to motility in the direction of serious fiction… [She] can write; simply her prose is cloaked in that facile sensuality that has dogged Negro expression since the days of Phyllis Wheatley... Her characters consume and express mirth and cry and work and kill; they swing like a pendulum eternally in that condom and narrow orbit in which America likes to see the Negro live: between laughter and tears.[48]

Ralph Ellison said the volume independent a "blight of calculated caricatural."[49]

Alain Locke wrote in a review: "when will the Negro novelist of maturity, who knows how to tell a story convincingly—which is Miss Hurston's cradle souvenir, come to grips with motive fiction and social document fiction?"[50]

The New Democracy 'south Otis Ferguson wrote: "it isn't that this novel is bad, but that information technology deserves to be better". Just he went on to praise the work for depicting "Negro life in its naturally artistic and unselfconscious grace".[51]

Not all African-American critics had negative things to say well-nigh Hurston's work. Carter Grand. Woodson, founder of The Journal of Negro History wrote, "Their Eyes Were Watching God is a gripping story... the writer deserves great praise for the skill and effectiveness shown in the writing of this volume." The critic noted Hurston's anthropological approach to writing, "She studied them until she thoroughly understood the working of their minds, learned to speak their language".[52]

Meanwhile, reviews of Hurston's volume in the mainstream white press were largely positive, although they did not translate into significant retail sales. Writing for The New York Times, Ralph Thompson states:

[T]he normal life of Negroes in the South today—the life with its holdovers from slave times, its social difficulties, kittenish excitements, and countless exuberances... compared to this sort of story, the ordinary narratives of Negroes in Harlem or Birmingham seem ordinary indeed."[53]

For the New York Herald Tribune, Sheila Hibben described Hurston equally writing "with her head as with her center" creating a "warm, vibrant touch on". She praised Their Eyes Were Watching God as filled with "a flashing, gleaming riot of black people, with a limitless sense of humor, and a wild, strange sadness".[54]

New York Times critic Lucille Tompkins described Their Eyes Were Watching God, thusly: "It is nigh Negroes... but really it is virtually every one, or at least every ane who isn't so civilized that he has lost the capacity for glory."[55]

Rediscovery [edit]

Equally universities across the country developed Black Studies programs in the 1970s and 1980s, they created greater space for Blackness literature in academia. Several prominent academics, including Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Addison Gayle, Jr., established a new "Black Aesthetic" that "placed the sources of gimmicky black literature and culture in the communal music and oral folk tradition".[56] This new respect coupled with a growing Black feminism led past Mary Helen Washington, Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, and others, would create the space for the rediscovery of Hurston.[56]

Hurston first achieved a level of mainstream institutional support in the 1970s. Walker published an essay, "Looking for Zora", in Ms. mag in 1975. In that work, she described how the Black community's general rejection of Hurston was like "throwing away a genius". The National Endowment for the Humanities went on to award Robert Hemenway two grants for his work to write Hurston's biography.[57] The 1977 biography was followed in 1978 past the re-upshot of Their Eyes Were Watching God.

In 1975, the Modern Language Association held a special seminar focusing on Hurston.[57] In 1981, professor Ruth Sheffey of Baltimore'south Morgan State University founded the Zora Neale Hurston Order. Hurston had attended the school, so known every bit Morgan Academy, in 1917.[58]

In 1978, Harper and Row leased its rights to Their Eyes Were Watching God to the Academy of Illinois Press. However, the printing was then assisting that Harper and Row refused to renew the leasing contract and instead reprinted its own new edition.[57] This new edition sold its total impress of 75,000 in less than a month.[59]

The New York Times ' Virginia Heffernan explains that the volume's "narrative technique, which is heavy on free-indirect discourse, lent itself to poststructuralist analysis".[60] With so many new disciplines particularly open to the themes and content of Hurston's work, Their Eyes Were Watching God achieved growing prominence in the concluding several decades. Information technology is now firmly established in the literary canon.[56]

On Nov 5, 2019, the BBC News listed Their Eyes Were Watching God on its list of the 100 nigh influential novels.[61]

Disquisitional analysis [edit]

  • In Maria J. Johnson's article "'The World in a Jug and the Stopper in [Her] Paw': Their Eyes Were Watching God as Blues Performance," she states that Hurston'due south novel takes a similar structure and aesthetic to blues civilisation. Johnson besides shows how the contrast of Hurston'southward images, such as the pleasure and pain dynamic of the bee, tin can be seen in songs by singers similar Bessie Smith.[62]
  • The commodity "The Cognitive Construction of the Self in Hurston'due south Their Eyes Were Watching God", by Patrick South. Bernard,[63] highlights the connectedness between the construction of self and knowledge in Hurston'south novel. According to Bernard, cognition is the inner essence of an individual that embodies the thought of "thinking, seeing, speaking, and knowing", merely is oft determined past 1's exterior environment. Janie, the protagonist, uses her cerebral skills to find her identity and throughout the novel develops her cognition further. While Janie is living in a sexist society, she continues to rise above her opposition, specifically that of her three husbands. Bernard demonstrates that:

In a conversation with Jody, Janie defends 'womenfolk,' disagreeing with the sexist merits that God fabricated men "different" considering they plow "out so smart" (70). When she states that men "don't know half as much every bit you recall you do," Jody interrupts her saying, 'you getting too moufy Janie... Get fetch me de checker-board and de checkers' (70–71) then that he and the other men could play (Bernard 9).

The comment from Jody, Janie'due south second husband, attempts to suppress her voice and dispense her thoughts. Rather than interim submissive to Jody, Janie for a brief moment contends with Jody past telling him how men misunderstand women. Jody fears that Janie's thinking volition atomic number 82 to her gaining more than knowledge and naturally to speaking her mind, eventually leading to Janie achieving the power of noesis to recognize and change the mistreatment and unfairness she has been receiving. Bernard proposes the idea that Jody'south relationship with Janie represents society'south assumption that women are of limited cognition. This assumption positions women in subservient roles that limit their ways of thinking, speaking, and seeing.[ commendation needed ]
In improver to bringing upward Janie'due south relationship with Jody, Bernard emphasizes how her relationships with her other husbands influenced her cognition. He points out the fact that Logan Killicks, Janie'due south outset husband, mistreated her past severing any offset form of self-construction past treating her as an baby. Bernard also brings forth the idea that Janie's construction of selfhood blossoms when Tea Block, her third husband, allows her to participate in experiences unimaginable to her. While Logan Killicks gives her no opportunity of expressing herself, Jody overpowers her expressive voice; Tea Block allows her construction of self to mature link between cocky construction and cognition. Bernard's principal indicate therefore is that self-construction is influenced by noesis, that is, knowing, thinking, seeing and speaking are important to the structure of self in Zora Neale Hurston's novel.[ citation needed ]
  • In "The Hierarchy Itself: Hurston's Their Optics Were Watching God and the Sacrifice of Narrative Potency," Ryan Simmons argues that Hurston made a statement against models of authority that supersede an oppressive system with other oppressive systems and offered an alternative. Past models of potency, he means the narrative voice of the author and Janie'southward narrative phonation. Hurston represented the dissimilar ideologies of Booker T. Washington and Due west. E. B. Du Bois through the characters of Logan Killicks and Joe ("Jody") Starks. Similar Washington, Logan models the path of "gradual progress" that would non threaten the white-dominated sphere of power and Hurston presents his practices as a tradeoff between liberty and pocket-size prosperity. Joe models the path advocated past Du Bois, which is one of assertion of dignity and less compromise. Nonetheless, the issue shown by Joe's eventual isolation from the customs dialogue he helped establish and Janie'due south overpowering of him through a usurpation of authority, Hurston shows that the weakness with Joe'southward approach is that information technology mirrors that of white suppression.
Instead, Hurston introduces a third style of achieving self-autonomy through Tea Cake. He represents an independence from reliance on communal validation, and instead serves as a mirror for Janie to discover her narrative power. In relation to the author'south narrative power, Tea Cake is the epitome of a good reader, one that is receptive to the transformative message of the text. Language is the understanding and sharpening of one's identity while communication comes 2nd. In Hurston'due south innovative narrative, she is attempting to fulfill the "ideal narrative", which is i that nurtures and changes both the reader and the author.[64]
  • In the article "'The Kiss of Retention': The Problem of Dearest in Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God," writer Tracy L. Bealer argues that Janie's quest for her ideal class of love, as symbolized past the pear tree in bloom, is impossible within her existing sociohistorical environment. The forces of racial and patriarchal hierarchies lead Tea Cake, who generally treats Janie as his intellectual and communal equal, to beat her in social club to display his dominance to their peers. Bealer asserts that the novel'due south depiction of Tea Cake, abuse and all, is intentionally clashing in order to simultaneously promote intersubjective love and to indict racism and sexism.[65]
  • William Thou. Ramsey, in his article "The compelling ambivalence of Zora Neale Hurston'due south Their Eyes Were Watching God," posits that the novel stands as an unfinished and unrealized work. He backs this claim by noting the brusque amount of fourth dimension Hurston spent writing as well every bit statements fabricated by Hurston in her autobiography. Ramsey also note how the numerous contradictions inherent in the novel (Tea Block'due south treatment of Janie, Janie's idealization of Tea Block, Janie's expectations of a utopian "pear tree" marriage, etc.) have led to wildly different interpretations and ultimately, a richly ambivalent text.
He also suggests that Tea Cake'south expiry is "Hurston's vicarious revenge on Arthur Price," a former lover that Hurston left to pursue a research fellowship in the Caribbean.[66]
  • In the article "Naming and Power in Zora Neale Hurston'southward Their Eyes were Watching God," Sigrid King comments that "Naming has always been an important issue in the Afro-American tradition because of its link to the practice of power." Their names are a form of ability. Male monarch also says that "Nanny teaches Janie the aforementioned lessons she learned most naming: Names are bound inside the white male power construction, and the near southward black adult female can hope for is to suffer within them". Nanny tells Janie that names are powerful are used to take power away from people and in the book we see thar Nanny'due south proper name is her function in club and not an actual name. Hurston is aware of the ability that names accept and she chooses to have Janie start off the volume without having a proper name.[67]
  • In the commodity "Racial and sexual politics of Their Optics are Watching God from a spatial perspective", Lihua Zhao argues that Janie is a victim of racism and gender sexism which leads to her poor graphic symbol attributes in a lead black female person novel. Zhao comments on the novel saying "Janie'due south adamant and consistent ignorance of racial spatial division implies her weak blackness identification, the horrible impairment done by racism. Her vague and brief feminist consciousness suggests the brainwash of patriarchy is so successful that it is very hard to eliminate." Zhao states that in society to bring attention to a social political issue, we must first betrayal the problem in a meaningful fashion similar how Hurston has in her novel.[68]
  • In the article "Mules and women: identify and rebel—Janie'southward identity quest in "Their Eyes Were Watching God'", Hongzhi Wu explores the symbolism of the mule in Hurston's novel claiming that it provides a deeper significant of the external issues of racism. Wu states, "In all these animate being talks they expressed their hatred of the abuses and exploitation from the white world; their despise of their white master'south ignorance and viciousness; their acclamation of the black people'due south industriousness and intelligence; and they besides expressed their hope of salvation." The mule acts as a metaphor for the exploitation and mistreatment of the blackness community past the white superiority race.[69]

Adaptations for theater, movie and radio [edit]

  • In 1983, the graduate repertory Hilberry Theater at Wayne State University produced To Gleam It Effectually, To Show My Smoothen, which is based on Their Eyes Were Watching God. The play was written by Bonnie Lee Moss Rattner and directed by Von Washington.[seventy] It has been produced numerous times by other companies.
  • Oprah Winfrey served equally executive producer of the made-for-Boob tube adaptation Their Eyes Were Watching God in 2005. Harpo Productions sponsored the flick, directed past Darnell Martin and with a screenplay written by Suzan-Lori Parks, Misan Sagay and Bobby Smith, Jr.
  • In 2011, the novel was adapted as a radio play for BBC Globe Drama, dramatized by Patricia Cumper. The play first aired on February nineteen, 2011.[71]
  • In 2012, a live radio play performance of Their Optics Were Watching God, written by Arthur Yorinks, was recorded and broadcast to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the book'southward publication.[72]

References [edit]

  1. ^ "20 Classic Novels of the Harlem Renaissance " Utica Public Library". uticapubliclibrary.org . Retrieved Dec eleven, 2019.
  2. ^ National Endowment for the Arts website.
  3. ^ Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Zora Neale Hurston: Critical Perspectives By and Nowadays (New York: Amistad, 1993), p. xi.
  4. ^ "All Fourth dimension 100 Novels". Fourth dimension. Oct 16, 2005. Archived from the original on December 31, 2005.
  5. ^ Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. Plot Summary, Volume Notes, Summary. BookRags.com. August 18, 2010.
  6. ^ Hurston, Zora (1937). Their Optics Were Watching God. United states: University of Illinois Press. p. 20.
  7. ^ Hurston, Zora (1937). Their Eyes Were Watching God. Us: University of Illinois Printing. p. 53.
  8. ^ a b Schnieber, Jacqueline (2017). "Negotiating Black Masculinity: The Black Freedom Struggle during the Harlem Renaissance in Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God". researchgate.cyberspace.
  9. ^ Dr. Shanmugiah; Karmegavannan (March 2018). "Emergence of New African-American Woman: A Study of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God" (PDF). languageinindia.com. ISSN 1930-2940.
  10. ^ Hurston, Zora Neale (2006). Their Eyes Were Watching God. Us: Harper Perennial Modern Classics. p. 71. ISBN978-0-06-083867-vi.
  11. ^ a b Hurston, Zora (1937). Their Eyes Were Watching God. USA: Academy of Illinois Press. p. 24.
  12. ^ Wu, Hongzhi (May 2014). "Mules and Women: Identify and Rebel—Janie's Identity Quest in "Their Eyes Were Watching God"" (PDF). Theory and Practice in Language Studies. 4 (5): 1053–1057. doi:ten.4304/tpls.four.5.1053-1057 – via Academy Publication.
  13. ^ Wu, Hongzhi (May 2014). "Mules and Women: Identity and Insubordinate – Janie's Identity Quest in "Their Eyes Were Watching God"" (PDF). Theory and Do in Language Studies. four (5): 1053–1057. doi:ten.4304/tpls.four.5.1053-1057 – via Academy Publication.
  14. ^ a b Hurston, Zora Neale (2006). Their Eyes Were Watching God. USA: Harper Perennial Mod Classics. p. 89. ISBN978-0-06-083867-6.
  15. ^ a b Davidson, Camille M. (September 16, 2013). "What's Love Got to Do with Information technology? Examining Domestic Violence equally a Public Health Consequence Using 'Their Eyes Were Watching God'". Rochester, NY. SSRN 2326454.
  16. ^ Qashgari, Sawsan (June 3, 2017). "Racism, Feminism and Language in Zora Neale Hurston'due south Their Eyes Were Watching God". Arab World English Journal. Rochester, NY: 37. SSRN 2980166.
  17. ^ Schnieber, Jacqueline (2017). "Negotiating Black Masculinity: The Black Freedom Struggle During the Harlem Renaissance in Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God". researchgate.cyberspace. p. 1.
  18. ^ Hurston, Zora Neale (2013). Their Eyes Were Watching God. USA: Harper Perennial Mod Classics. p. 71. ISBN978-0-06-083867-6.
  19. ^ Schnieber, Jacqueline (2017). "Negotiating Black Masculinity: The Black Freedom Struggle During the Harlem Renaissance in Hurston'south Their Eyes Were Watching God". researchgate.net. p. vii.
  20. ^ a b Qashgari; Sawsan (June 3, 2017). "Racism, Feminism and Language in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God". Rochester, NY. SSRN 2980166.
  21. ^ Hurston, Zora Neale (1937). Their Eyes Were Watching God. USA: HarperCollins. p. 56.
  22. ^ Hurston, Zora Neale (2006). Their Optics Were Watching God. Harper Perennial Modernistic Classics. p. 130. ISBN978-0-06-083867-half-dozen.
  23. ^ Hurston, Zora Neale (2006). Their Eyes Were Watching God. Usa: Harper Perennial Modern Classics. p. 130. ISBN978-0-06-083867-vi.
  24. ^ Schnieber, Jacqueline (2017). "Negotiating Black Masculinity: The Black Liberty Struggle During the Harlem Renaissance in Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God". researchgate.net. p. eight.
  25. ^ a b Bloom, Harold (1986). Mod Critical Views: Zora Neale Hurston. New York: Chelsea Business firm Publishers. pp. 29–33, 40. ISBN978-0-87754-627-6.
  26. ^ Rooks, Noliwe Yard., 1963– (2004). Ladies' Pages : African American Women's Magazines and the Civilisation that Made Them. New Brunswick, Due north.J.: Rutgers University Press. ISBN9780813542522. OCLC 636443300. {{cite volume}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  27. ^ Hawkes, DeLisa D. (2012–2014). "Cocky-Realization in a Restricted Globe: Janie'due south Early Discovery in Zora Neale Hurston 'due south Their Optics Were Watching God".
  28. ^ Hurston, Zora (1937). Their Eyes Were Watching God. Us: University of Illinois Press.
  29. ^ Patterson, Tiffany Ruby (2005). Zora Neale Hurston : And A History Of Southern Life. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ISBN 978-1592132904.
  30. ^ McGowan, Todd (1999). "Liberation and Domination: Their Eyes Were Watching God and the Evolution of Commercialism". MELUS. 24: 109–128.
  31. ^ "The Struggle for Women'due south Equality in Black America :: African American History :: Articles :: Lest We Forget". lestweforget.hamptonu.edu . Retrieved April 11, 2019.
  32. ^ Zhao, Lihua (2015). "Racial and sexual politics of Their Eyes are Watching God from a spatial perspective". Theory and Exercise in Language Studies. 5 (11): 2315. doi:ten.17507/tpls.0511.15.
  33. ^ McGowan, Todd (1999). "Liberation and Domination: Their Eyes Were Watching God and the Evolution of Commercialism". MELUS. 24 (1): 109–128. doi:10.2307/467909. JSTOR 467909.
  34. ^ Ferguson, SallyAnn (1987). "Folkloric Men and Female Growth in Their Optics Were Watching God". Black American Literature Forum. 21 (1/2): 185–197. doi:10.2307/2904428. ISSN 0148-6179. JSTOR 2904428.
  35. ^ Bloom, Harold (1986). Modern Critical Views: Zora Neale Hurston. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. pp. 35–46. ISBN978-0-87754-627-six.
  36. ^ Hurston, Zora (1937). Their Eyes Were Watching God. USA: University of Illinois Press. p. 21.
  37. ^ Hurston, Zora (1937). Their Eyes Were Watching God. USA: University of Illinois Press. p. 58.
  38. ^ Hurston, Zora (1937). Their Eyes Were Watching God. U.s.a.: University of Illinois Press. p. 48.
  39. ^ Rex. The Cambridge Introduction to Zora Neale Hurston. p. 25.
  40. ^ Hurston, Zora. Dust Tracks on a Road: An Autobiography. New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1942, p. 205. as cited in Flower, Harrold. Bloom'south Guides – Zora Neale Hurston's Their Optics Were Watching God. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009, p. 15.
  41. ^ Bloom, Bloom's Guides – Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, p. xv.
  42. ^ Hurston, Grit Tracks on a Road, p. 188. as cited in Bloom, Bloom's Guides – Zora Neale Hurston'due south Their Eyes Were Watching God, p. 15.
  43. ^ King, The Cambridge Introduction to Zora Neale Hurston. p. 7.
  44. ^ The Eatonville Speaker, 1889. cited in Lester, Neal. Understanding Their Eyes Were Watching God. London: The Greenwood Press, 1999, p. 148.
  45. ^ Blossom, Bloom'southward Guides – Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. p. 14.
  46. ^ Wall, Cheryl A. Their Eyes Were Watching God – A Casebook. New York: Oxford University Printing, 2000. p. half dozen.
  47. ^ Miles, Diana. "Diana Miles on Female person Identity and Rebirth". Bloom'southward Guides – Zora Neale Hurston's Their Optics Were Watching God. Edited past Harrold Bloom. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009, p. 66.
  48. ^ Wright, Richard (October 5, 1937). "Between Laughter and Tears" (PDF). New Masses. Vol. 25, no. 2. 31 East 27th Street, New York City: Weekly Masses Co., Inc. pp. 22, 25. Retrieved Oct fourteen, 2021. {{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  49. ^ Ellison, Ralph. Every bit cited in Burt, Daniel. The Novel 100. Checkmark Books, 2003, p. 366.
  50. ^ Locke, Alain. Opportunity, 06 01, 1938. (accessed April 18, 2012).
  51. ^ Ferguson, Otis. The New Republic, Oct xiii, 1937. (accessed April eighteen, 2012).
  52. ^ Forrest, Ethel. "Book Reviews" The Journal of Negro History. January one, 1938. (Accessed Apr 12, 2012).
  53. ^ Thompson, Ralph. "Books of the Times." The New York Times. October half dozen, 1937. accessed March 30, 2012.
  54. ^ Hibben, Sheila. "Volume Review". New York Herald Tribune, 09-26, 1937. As cited in Bloom, Bloom's Guides – Zora Neale Hurston'due south Their Optics Were Watching God. p. 16.
  55. ^ Tompkins, Lucille. "Book Review." The New York Times. September 26, 1937. Equally cited in King, The Cambridge Introduction to Zora Neale Hurston. p. 113.
  56. ^ a b c Spencer, Stephen. "On Hurston'southward Contribution to the Canon." Bloom's Guides – Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Edited by Harold Bloom. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009, p. 87.
  57. ^ a b c Carby, Hazel. "The Politics of Fiction, Anthropology, and the Folk: Zora Neale Hurston." Bloom's Interpretations – Zora Neale Hurston'due south Their Eyes Were Watching God. Edited by Harrold Bloom. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2008, p. 23.
  58. ^ Bray, Rosemary L. "Renaissance for a Pioneer of Blackness Pride." The New York Times, 02 09, 1990.
  59. ^ Carby, Hazel. "The Politics of Fiction, Anthropology, and the Folk: Zora Neale Hurston." Bloom's Interpretations – Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Edited by Harrold Bloom. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2008, p. 24.
  60. ^ Heffernan, Virginia. "A Adult female on a Quest, via Hurston and Oprah." The New York Times. March v, 2005. (accessed April iii, 2012).
  61. ^ "100 'nigh inspiring' novels revealed by BBC Arts". BBC News. Nov 5, 2019. Retrieved November 10, 2019. The reveal kickstarts the BBC'southward yr-long celebration of literature.
  62. ^ Johnson, Maria J. "'The Earth in a Jug and the Stopper in [Her] Hand': Their Eyes Were Watching God every bit Dejection Performance". African American Review, 32(3) 1998: 401–414. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. October 23, 2012.
  63. ^ Bernard', Patrick (2007). "The Cognitive Construction of the Cocky in Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God". CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture. Purdue University. 9 (2). doi:ten.7771/1481-4374.1221.
  64. ^ Simmons, Ryan. "The Hierarchy Itself: Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and the Sacrifice of Narrative Authority". African American Review 36.2 (Summertime 2002): 181–93. Print.
  65. ^ Bealer, Tracy L. (2009). ""The Kiss of Retention": The Problem of Dearest in Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God". African American Review. 43 (two): 311–327. doi:ten.1353/afa.2009.0039. ISSN 1945-6182. S2CID 142149929.
  66. ^ Ramsey, William M. (1994). "The Compelling Ambivalence of Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God"". The Southern Literary Journal. 27 (ane): 36–50. ISSN 0038-4291. JSTOR 20078110.
  67. ^ https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/modernnovel/files/2018/06/King-on-Hurston.pdf
  68. ^ Zhao, Lihua (Nov 2015). "Racial and sexual politics of Their Eyes are Watching God from a spatial perspective". Theory and Practice in Linguistic communication Studies. five (11): 2315–2319. doi:10.17507/tpls.0511.15. Gale A446637387.
  69. ^ Zu, Hongzhi (May 2016). "Mules and women: place and rebel—Janie's identity quest in "Their Eyes Were Watching God'" (PDF). Theory and Practice in Linguistic communication Studies. four (5): 1053–1057. doi:x.4304/tpls.4.5.1053-1057. Gale A373678946.
  70. ^ "Collection: Bonnie Lee Moss Rattner Papers". equally.reuther.wayne.edu. Wayne State Academy ArchivesSpace. Retrieved July 21, 2019.
  71. ^ "Their Eyes Were Watching God". BBC Globe Drama. BBC Earth Service. 2011. Retrieved February twenty, 2011.
  72. ^ Itzkoff, Dave, "Radio Play of 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' Is Ready", The New York Times, February 8, 2012 (accessed March 25, 2012).

External links [edit]

  • Their Eyes Were Watching God at Faded Page (Canada)
  • Describes Hurston's participation in the Harlem Renaissance; also summary, assay, themes, and essays from "Their Eyes Were Watching God"
  • "Their Optics Were Watching God": Folk Voice communication and Figurative Linguistic communication

Haitian Nanny Beats Baby Girl for Throwing Up

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Their_Eyes_Were_Watching_God