On The Male Characters In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God

Zora Neale Hurston is a distinguished black female writer and an active member ofHarlem Renaissance. Her masterpiece Their Eyes Were Watching God is an unconventionalnovel in an age when protest literature prevailed. Instead of powerfully exposing thecruelty and inhumanity of slavery and racism like other Harlem intellectuals did in1930s,Hurston chose to write the inspiring experience and poetic life of common black people inblack vernacular. Her books are deeply rooted in the tradition of black culture and try toexplore the rich and sophisticated aspects of black women’s soul. And her masterpieceTheir Eyes Were Watching God can be seen as a reflection of her ideas about therelationship among race, gender and culture.From Nanny, to Logan Killicks, Joe Starks and Tea Cake, Janie has survived a seriesof sufferings from marriage and community. She grows from an innocent teenage girl to amature independent woman. Critics are impressed by Hurston’s feminist idea and Janie’sheroic spirit. She refuses to be a typical black female victim as her grandmother and nevergives up her faith in marriage though her first two husbands force her to be theiraccessories. When she finds that excessive love for spouse is an obstruction on her journeyand a threat to her safety, she bravely shots her third husband and restores her lost voice.The thesis focuses on Janie’s three husbands. They are three stepping stones forJanie’s spiritual growth. Material protection, social status and affectionate love–which canliberate black women from male domination, backbreaking fieldwork and racialdiscrimination? By analyzing Janie’s three husbands’ characteristics and their relationshipswith her, the thesis explores the mentality of black people in that age–the mental traumacaused by slavery and the psychological distortion caused by cultural invasion. Thosemajor images, such as pear tree, singing bees, mule, hair rag and horizon, etc., are closelyrelated to the inner world of characters and the development of the heroine’s spiritualgrowth. Janie’s feminist quest for identity awakens and enlightens Hurston’s femalecontemporaries, and her three black husbands who Hurston designs carefully also cautionher male compatriots. She is not a narrow–minded racist or an extreme feminist. What she advocates in her book are a harmonious, open and tolerant cultural relationship and anequal and loyal gender relationship with mutual respect.