Zora Neale Hurston’s classic novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, celebrated the life and independence of an African-American female named Janie. Following her death, her works fell into obscurity until they were rediscovered by renowned the African-American author, Alice Walker. Her love of Hurston’s work is well known, and in her book, In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens, she details her search for Hurston’s resting place, further illustrating her interest in Hurston’s life. As a tribute, in her novel, The Color Purple, Alice Walker’s character Celie is heavily influenced by Zora Neale Hurston’s portrayal of Janie and this is evidenced by the many parallels can be drawn between their lives, the fact that local color plays a huge part in their portrayals, and that both of them discover how strong they really are and assert their independence.
Many parallels can be drawn between the protagonists of both of these stories. Janie is born as a very light-skinned child, the product of a rape that resulted in her being raised by her grandmother. Celie is born into a poor family and is has two children as the result of rape by her step-father. Janie is married off to a farmer by way of arranged marriage, as is Celie. Celie is physically and sexually abused by her spouse as well, which leads her to further detach herself from her humanity by “making herself wood” (Walker 22) Janie’s second husband, Jody, forces her to repress her nature out of jealousy, taking “all the fight out of her face” until the point that “she thought it was gone from her soul” (Hurston 76). These women suffer through their respective existences until they find love – in the forms of Shug Avery and Tea Cake. Even these are bittersweet as Shug gets married and Janie is forced to kill Tea Cake after he catches rabies. Yet, both of the novels end with the protagonist as an independent woman forged by the fires of their past experiences.
The local color of Their Eyes Were Watching God and The Color Purple, help create the feeling of the times in which they are set and help accentuate the characters. Both Celie and Janie affect a Southern dialect in their speech, although they do differ given the two different regions in which these stories take place. Hurston’s inclusion of African-American folklore in her novel was evidence of her particular fondness for the subject, yet they also served the purpose of providing a sense of depth for the characters, and provided the reader with the feeling that they had a history. Janie’s thoughts of “Death, …who lived way in the West” (Hurston 84) provide insight into the beliefs of the time period. Walker’s choice of turning of Harpo’s house into a speakeasy that hosted Jazz artists like Shug Avery, functioned as a method for building a sense of community near the isolated farm that Celie lives on. It is here, where Shug dedicates a song to Celie that she finally begins to feel the stirrings of self-worth.
The liberation of these two women in their respective novels is portrayed differently, yet it is completely necessary in order to achieve the growth in character that they (and the reader) have been waiting for. Janie shoots Tea Cake, which symbolically elevates her and frees her from the submissive position of being less than a man. Celie’s business success after leaving her husband also portrays her in this light. This actualization of self is only achieved through trials, and adheres to the Modernist tenet that something must be sacrificed in order to gain something else.
Hurston, Zora N. Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Walker,
Books, 2000. 93-116.
- - - . “The Color Purple.” United States: First Harvests, 2003.
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