The Journey From Cave To Light

This thesis is an attempt to employ the philosophical thinking of Plato's "the Allegory of the Cave" to analyze Zora Neale Hurston's masterpiece Their Eyes Were Watching God. Through studying and comparing these two works, the author discovers that the ascendance of the prisoner from the dark cave to the upper world in "the Allegory" has both structural and ideological resemblance to Janie's life-journey of searching for self-identity in Their Eyes. "The Allegory of the Cave" is an important western philosophical work. In it, Plato, based on his deep understanding of human nature and his creative mind, presents his philosophical believes in a metaphorical way. The Prisoner's ascendance from the dark underground cave to the upper world can be viewed as human being's exploration for the truth. For Janie, the protagonist in Their Eyes, the truth she is searching for is her identity and a truly self-satisfying life. The thesis divides Janie's self-searching journey in accordance with the different stages in the prisoner's ascendance from cave to light. In this way, we will have a better understanding of Janie's growth from a bonded and suppressed black woman to an independent woman who is strong enough to be herself and lives in the way as she desires. Janie is actually a prisoner bonded in the cave. She needs to shake off all the shackles and break away from all the oppression to free her suppressed self-identity, recognize her inner-self, go into the light and live a truly happy life. Through applying both the form and the philosophical thinking of "the Allegory of the Cave" to analyze Their Eyes Were Watching God we will not only be able to have a better understanding of the heroine Janie's life journey, but also to better recognize the deep philosophical meaning of this literature work:we should get out of our own cave and find the truth of life, just like what Janie did in the novel.