Social and Personal Issues in Native Son and Their Eyes Were Watching God - Essay Example

Social and Personal Issues in Native Son and Their Eyes Were Watching God Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston presents a rather autobiographical account of women’s hardships. This notion is clearly reflected in the text although the book is not explicitly considered to be Huston’s personal autobiography. Her experiences of female development have been meshed in the fictional character of her book, Janie. Nellie McKay considers the autobiographical notion as important in understanding the theme from the context of the author so as to realize the personal dimension present in the book (51). Native Son by Richard Wright, on the other hand, is considered a contribution to the American Literary Modernist Movement due to its influential nature (Stacey, 6). The book presents a more social and political aspect of racial and ethnic crisis occurring not only between the African Americans and the whites but also among other groups including Jewish and Irish Americans. For this reason, the book has an essence of universality and generality rather than addressing a racial crisis among only a targeted set of individuals or groups. While both authors present their arguments from a different angle, the themes of their book pertain to a similar crisis although their perspective has been different. Many consider Their Eyes Were Watching God to have a hint of feminism in it particularly as symbolized by Janie’s character. Janie is oppressed and maltreated by men and other women, and she spends a considerable number of years in trying to raise her voice against the oppression. The critical writing in the African American literature, particularly the works of women, seems to articulate the oppression of females and how their silence is broken in a voice against oppression (Racine, 283). Because men still possessed the power to speak, women felt silenced or left behind in terms of raising their voice or speaking out against the misery. It was understood that women will keep their silence regardless of any hardship. In writing about women’s hardships, Hurston has used interiority in her work which is reflected her interpretation of the intramural apprehension through her characterization of Janie (Racine, 283). Because the narrator’s consciousness and Janie’s consciousness seems to overlap, it is considered that both have the same voice. According to my interpretation, Janie has been used as a figure by Hurston to voice her own thoughts and ideas so as to describe an internal conflict that she felt as a result of oppression. Hurston has made an attempt to tell a story of her own experiences of women development through the character of Janie. One example of how Janie develops as she goes on having relationships with the four men in her life, three of them being her husbands. Throughout the story, Hurston has aligned the personal growth of Janie with that of these men who symbolize control and passion (Racine, 283). With a more personal feel, Janie’s character adds to the personal aspect of hardships gone through by women of the time. Although not really an autobiography, the book’s characterization represent Hurston’s personal experiences which are central in giving the work a personal outlook among the audiences. Patrick S. Bernard analyzes the psychological development of Janie from an innocent girl to an adult woman (2). The personal growth of Janie has been a central theme in the book where Janie realizes that she has transformed into a beautiful young woman from a naive girl she used to be. Bernard’s interpretation of the book therefore focuses on the various aspects of Janie’s development including psychological, emotional, physical, spiritual, and so on (2). All these aspects describe Janie’s personal development and her self-formation. Janie’s character has been assessed and evaluated on the basis of self-formation as being a product of cognitive changes. In the book, Janie explores herself as cognitively developing by “knowing, seeing, thinking, and speaking” (Bernard, 2). According to cognitive psychology self development occurs as a result of interaction between cognition and the culture. This interaction is important in the formation of Janie’s character as a cognitive product. During her marriages, she realizes that her silence has to be broken and that new word had to be vocalized. This reflects a form of self-consciousness which spurred development within her. The changes in her experiences have been responsible for motivating development within her by adding to her language capacity (Bernard, 8). By learning a language and enhancing her capacity, she sees a developmental change within herself that is producing a self-formation. An incident occurs in the book when Janie disregards the sexist claim that men are smarter than women as they were naturally made such by God. Bernard interprets the use of checkers as an expression of symptomatic thought and explains that checkers is used as a language which enables Janie to encode and decode the gendered society (9). Bernard derives a metaphorical meaning to the use of checkers as a game which involves learning of its rules and procedures thereby implying that social learning is occurring within Janie. Because of new experiences during the course of life, an individual undergoes changes in consciousness due to the new sensory data received every day. Bernard’s journal article describes the ways in which Janie’s cognitive development occurs. Janie’s development of herself and her voice against the oppression is what makes the book relevant and brings about a personal touch in the story. This is probably the reason why Their Eyes has been given a high level in human interiority as the character and her development often coincide with Hurston’s experiences of women development. Hurston’s book presents developmental changes in the protagonist as she undergoes marriages with three of the men she was involved with. Often the book represents a close relation between Hurston and Janie whose voice often coincide with that of the narrator. With Janie’s character, Hurston has characterized her own experiences of female development. The reader may sometimes see the reflection of Hurston’s personal issues as symbolized by Janie. Due to these elements together with the cognitive development which Janie experiences, the book reflects the gendered society and the struggle of women against the hardships. While Hurston’s book has a more personal embodiment, Richard Wright’s book presents a more seminal account of the African American community. Nevertheless, both books seek to address the social issues that they have experienced though using different lenses. Native Son explores the racial and ethnic crisis that was widespread during the early 20th century. In his book, Wright describes the issues of estrangement, societal conflict, and self-identity. Although it is popular in African American literature due to its influential nature, it addresses the class conflicts of not only African Americans but also other social groups within the United States that suffered from a self conflict (Stacey, 6). Just like many claim Their Eyes to have a tinge of feminism, Stacey explores how the feminist theory applies to Wright’s book (31). The basis for the rise of feminism was the patriarchal society, which is very well reflected in Hurston’s book. The subject of feminism was the viewing of society with the lens of men and a great deal of literature was contributed to the movement in order to present a critique of the highly gendered society. Wright presents two forms of struggles in his book: for freedom and autonomy in a disproportionately class-oriented society and the struggle to mechanize women (France, 414). Native Son is essentially about an African American man who has risen in revolt against power of Whites. However, this rebellion transforms into an appropriation of human beings. Feminists have criticized the work as presenting black women as dangerous and portraying women as an insult to the masculinity of men (France, 414). Another article mentions how Wright has stereotyped the image of Black women as having accepted the sexist judgment of the society (Demirturk, 522). This resulted in many female African American writers including Zora Neale Hurston to contribute works to the literature that creates a different image of black women than the one portrayed by Wright (Demirturk, 522). Hurston has presented a very different aspect of black women in the urban society that undergo maturational changes against the oppression. For this reason, the book is often perceived as representing a different trend in African American literature due to its misogynic elements. Hurston on the other hand has been seen as having a different writing style as she refutes the stereotype of black women created by Wright. Apart from having sexism in his book, Wright presents a strong criticism of racial oppression in the United States as well as other parts of the world. For this reason, it holds universality in its text which is relevant to the struggles of economically challenged individuals and groups across all continents, particularly the formerly colonial regions of Africa. Wright has interpreted the role of social and cultural foundational bodies in representing the beliefs about slavery around the world (Demirturk, 522). Due to its critique of oppressive and racist white Americans, Native Son has been considered as a seminal work that is extremely vocal on the social issue of ethnic and racial disparity where an increasing portion of African Americans were still living as lower socio-economic class. Tuitt has contributed an article that analyzes the role of literary works such as Native Son in promoting or countering violence. Tuitt emphasizes that violence promotion using literary works is employed in cases where the alternative modes of dealing with oppression are missing (201). Wright’s work has often been labeled as an artistic violence (Tutit, 201) and this is because of the deep message it contains that may spur violence however the author concludes that the book can also be used to counter violence (Tuitt, 201). The book’s perceived lack of “stylistic elegance” has been associated with instigating racial violence (Tuitt, 202). However, I believe that the book addresses some key social issues from the lens of an African American male who creates a sense of commotion in an individual with its accounts of murder, rape, and other violence. This has given rise to an image of the book as an artistic violence that promotes violence. While the two books by Hurston and Wright aim to address social issues, the two employ a different approach on developing the storyline. This is why Hurston’s book is often considered as having a personal interiority whereas Wright presents a more politically charged book with a deeper message of oppression. Both books however address similar social issues although Wright presents a stereotyping of Black women in his book which is entirely different than what Hurston creates in her book. Works Cited Bernard, Patrick S. “The Cognitive Construction of the Self in Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.” CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 9.2 (2007): . Demirturk, Lale E. “Richard Wright's Native Son (review).” African American Review 43.2-3 (2009): 521-523. France, Alan W. “Misogyny and Appropriation in Wright's Native Son.” MFS Modern Fiction Studies 34.3 (1988): 413-423. McKay, Nellie. ““Crayon Enlargements of Life”: Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God as Autobiography.” New Essays on Their Eyes Were Watching God (2011): 51-70. Web. 3 Nov. 2013. Read More