A Study Of Their Eyes Were Watching God From The Perspective Of New Historicism

Zora Neale Hurston is the Mother of Black Female Literature.Her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God is the first work in black literature that fully demonstrates the awakening of female consciousness.In the context of the extremely acute racial and gender discrimination in the United States,it tells the story of Janie’s self-consciousness awakening after three marriages.Its rich connotation and historical significance give it the possibility of multiple interpretation perspectives.However,traditional research only focuses on the text,ignoring the interaction between the text and the history.New Historicism believes that in the process of creating novels,the author shapes the image of characters through negotiations with social politics and ideology,which is reflected in the fact that he not only adds his personal opinions,but is also influenced by external factors;he is engaged in dialogue and discussion with the historical environment actively,but submits to the historical environment.Therefore,the thesis interprets the novel from the perspective of New Historicism,aiming to explore the interactive relationship between text and history.This thesis is composed of six parts.The introduction mainly introduces Zora Neale Hurston and Their Eyes Were Watching God,analyzes the research at home and abroad,and proposes the thesis statement.The main body is divided into four chapters.Chapter One introduces the origin and development of the New Historicism and elucidates the content of the New Historicism briefly,including the historicity of texts and the textuality of history proposed by Louis Montrose,and Stephen Greenblatt’s subversion,containment and negotiation.Chapter Two discusses the representation of “the historicity of the text” in Their Eyes Were Watching God.This chapter first starts from Janie’s three marriages to dig into the history reflected in Their Eyes Were Watching God,and reproduces the turbulent situation of the feminist movement in the United States,the rise of the black middle class and Harlem Renaissance.At the same time,it explores how the production of the text is affected by history while participating in social shaping as a part of history.Chapter Three focuses on the “textuality of history”.Through the life experiences and psychological characteristics of the marginalized figures such as Logan Killicks,Joe Starks,and Tea Cake,it presents the events that happened in the racial history of African Americans to present the real existence of blacks after abolition of slavery in the United States.In addition,this chapter reproduces the living conditions of marginalized groups that were forgotten by history in the United States in the 1920 s and1930s by exploring the black folk culture contained in the novel to supplement and challenge the “History” with the “histories”,and thus reflects a more real historical reality.Finally,this chapter analyzes how history is textualized by interpreting Hurston’s narrative strategies for deconstructing history,including frame narrative and image narrative,such as food images that appear at different stages in the novel.Chapter Four focuses on the subversion,containment and negotiation embodied in the works,and explores the social and cultural context at that time and analyzes the dynamic connection between the text and the history through the balance and compromise under the action of joint forces in society.At first,it concerns about the oppressed status of black women and their loss of discourse power,and then questions masculine hegemony of white men.It also discusses how black women in the novel try to get rid of the control of the patriarchal society,but they are often suppressed by mainstream ideology.Furthermore,it analyzes Hurston’s dual negotiation of sexism and racism,that is,equality between blacks and whites,men and women.The last part is the conclusion of the thesis.The thesis focuses on the relationship between the text and the history and summarizes the significance of Hurston’s shaping and deconstruction of history and her negotiation of the social ideology for the current society combining with the background of Hurston’s creation.In brief,as a text that reproduces history,Their Eyes Were Watching God shows the author’s strong historical awareness and humanistic sentiments,and achieves the purpose of re-examining history and participating in historical construction,which has irreplaceable historical significance for readers to better understand American racial issues and the feminist movement.