Literature Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Hurston

Zora Hurston

THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD

Zora Hurston's 'Their Eyes were watching God' occupies an important place in African-American literature on account of that fact that it is not part of the protest literature that emerged during Harlem Renaissance. The novel revolves around a powerful belief: a person's failure is caused more by his thinking than his sex or color. In other words, Hurston argues that when man refuses to strive for the satisfaction of his inner desires, he blames external forces for his failure. Such a person finds a convenient excuse in the shape of sex or color when he fails to live his life the way he wanted. Hurston firmly maintains that black race suffered immensely even after emancipation because it refused to let go of its past and the fact that they had been subjugated for a long time.

Throughout the novel, we find Hurston keenly observing the strained relationship between Nanny and Janie to accentuate the generational differences. Her primary purpose was to highlight the reasons behind the problems faced by the black race and unlike other writers; she did not blame color or race for this. For this reason, she was attacked vehemently by other black writers of her time for not portraying the African-American community in its true light. To this Hurston replied, "I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are hurt about it. I am not tragically colored."(Foreword) Her beliefs are clearly evident from this novel where she studies the reasons black race has failed to rise above its self-imposed limitations.

Janie here symbolizes Hurston's desire to create new and original identity, one that is completely free of past influences. In other words, by placing Nanny in the novel, Hurston wants her race to understand that the real cause of their problems is the refusal of the old generation to part with their slave mind-set. Not only did they firmly held on to past incidents of pain and suffering, they were also reluctant to let their children seek a brighter future. For some reason, they had come to believe that they had been dealt a unfair hand by God and thus couldn't possibly become bigger than the opportunities available to them.

Janie refused to accept these limiting beliefs and while she listened to her Nanny's stories, it was more to strengthen her own conviction than to sympathize with her ancestors. It was due to this that she finally achieved her goal of self-fulfillment. Her journey involves three important relationships, which act as stepping-stones to her final success. She leaves her first husband when she realizes that this marriage was based more on the idea of protection than love or equality. Her second marriage is also devoid of any real happiness. Jody, her second husband' treats her with the same kind of love that he extended to his animals. "Somebody got to think for women and chilun and chickens and cows (67)." This was again not what Janie had desired. She muses, "Freein' dat mule makes a mighty fine man outa you. Something like George Washington...you got uh town so you freed uh mule. You have tuh have power tuh free things and dat makes you lak uh king uh something (55)."

But being an independent woman who was not interested in protection or money alone, Janie decides to get out of this marital bond and ends up having a healthy positive and very meaningful relationship with Tea Cake.

Tea Cake was someone who believed in Janie's dreams and her desire to be free. She agreed with Janie that a person should blame himself for his failure not his race or gender.