Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were
Watching God is a coming-of-age novel set in the late 1920s and early 1930s in
an all-black town in Central Florida. The book is dealing with Afro-American
women’s struggles. Their Eyes Were Watching God novel narrates the story of
Janie Crawford, a black woman in a journey of self-discovery. During her
voyage, she faces many experiences which are full of significances that may
lead her to her maturation. Beside the complicated plot, one thing that should
be learn from this novel is the way Zora Neale Hurston potray The Afro-American
in the story. Each of the woman character have different perspective and vision
towards feminism value that they experienced during their life. There are 3
different women with 3 different characteristic in this story. They are Nanny,
Jaeni's mother, and Jeani herself.
Nanny Crawford was born a slave and
emancipated during the Civil War as a former slave who worked in a white
employer´s house. Nanny is Janie's maternal grandmother who raised her along
with white children. In her nanny has bad time being a slave, and raped by her
master. Her daughter’ also has been raped, too, at seventeen by a school
teacher. Her experience in life
traumatize her and make her vision of the world became a negative reflections
of an oppressed black woman. As a result
she became very stric to Jaeni's life because she does not want Jeani end up
like her or her mother.
"Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything as
fur as Ah been able tuh find out. Maybe it’s some place way off in de ocean
where de black man is in power, but we don’t know nothin’ but what we see. So
de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick
it up because he have to, but he don’t tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks.
De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see (2.44)."
Nanny always tells Janie that black
woman has occupied a subordinated position in the hierarchic society being
doubly oppressed due to her color. she also remind Jaeni how much the white men
exploited the black men; the black women, however, for being considered
inferior to men and for being black, were the most exploited human being, at a
such low level, to be considered as non- human who can be used by others, even
by people of the same race. She force her to marry in a very young age because
she realized that she is not going to live longer to take care of Janie.
Thus,she provides her a rich husband, Logan Killicks.
