Existentialism In Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God?

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Throughout the watershed moment in history that was the Harlem Renaissance, countless black artists, novelists and musicians helped contribute to the newly forming facets of African American existentialism and cultural autonomy in a nation that had denied their independence for centuries. In her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, novelist Zora Neale Hurston illuminates the unique experience of a black woman’s search for meaning in both the African American and feminist rights movements of the mid 20th century . Their Eyes Were Watching God was published in 1937 after the height of the Harlem Renaissance. Hurston was an African American female writer known for critiquing patriarchy and race relations’ encompassing the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th …show more content…
Janie’s character was one of the first of his kind, with an African American female hero searching for identity and autonomy.7 Hurston’s work was intended to inspire and empower her audience by presenting the existence of possibilities and opportunities for women. Janie’s character opposes the common notion that a women identity is defined by a relationship to men, rather then women exploring their own individual self. Their Eyes Were Watching God is the narrative of Janie’s journey to self-awareness; the description of Janie’s lifetime experiences includes the search for love, freedom and satisfaction.1 Their Eyes Were Watching God reflects on the African American journey throughout time, revealing the

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