Essay on the Voice of Janie in Their Eyes Were Watching God

The Powerful Voice of Janie in Their Eyes Were honoring God The world of Janie Crawford in Their Eyes Were ceremony God was one of oppression and disappointment. She left the world of her suffocating grandmother to live with a man whom she did not love, and in fact did not redden know. She then left him to marry another man who offered her wealth in terms of material possessions but left her in utter spiritual poerty. later her second husbands death, she claims responsibility and control of her own life, and through her shared love with her new husband, Teacake, she is able to overcome her status of oppression. Zora Neale Hurston artfully and effectively shows this victory over oppression throughout the book through her use of language. Her use of such stylistic devices as free indidrect discourse and signifting allow her to use language as power the power for a black woman to realize her own potential. The voice which Hurston pretends is marked by her intertwinin g of black vernacular and standard English to create a seemless, fluid narration. The combination of the two seemingly dichotomous aspects of language is called the chaterly text by Henry Louis Gates in his essay of the same name, and is overly more commonly called free indirect discourse. The scene in which Mayor Starks, Janies husband, has erected the new street lamp for the town, exemplifies Hurstons use of free indirect discourse. Janie and her husband first speak to each other using the recognizable black dialect of the region Well, honey, how yuh like bein Mrs. Mayor? Its all right Ah reckon, but dont yuh think it keeps us in a kinda strain? The omniscient third person narrator then captures J... ...pjc.cc.fl.us/hooks/Zora.html Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were observance God. New York Harper & Row, 1937. Johnson, Barbara. Metaphor, Metonymy and Voice in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Modern Critical Interpretations Zora Neale Hurstons Their E yes Were Watching God. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. Kubitschek, Missy Dehn. Tuh de Horizon and Back The Female Quest in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Modern Critical Interpretations Zora Neale Hurstons Their Eyes Were Watching God. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. Pondrom, Cyrena N. The Role of Myth in Hurstons Their Eyes Were Watching God. American Literature 58.2 (May 1986) 181-202. Williams, Shirley Anne. Forward. Their Eyes Were Watching God. By Zora Neale Hurston. New York Bantam-Dell, 1937. xv.