Examples Of Dualism In Their Eyes Were Watching God

An idea Hurston prefigures in Their Eyes were Watching God, remains the dualism of the inside and outside. This inside versus outside comes as a distorted idea that pervades basic awareness. It first shows when Janie, also known as “Alphabet,” does not recognize herself in the group photograph; to then on when Janie distinguishes her inside and outside self but decides to collapse this dualism to become something beyond it. A significant part of Janie’s inside and outside self involves speech, also the diction and dialect of the other characters’ draw upon a broader and deeper resource of who the character is. In Their Eyes, this highlighted recurrence of the metaphorical inside and outside continues to repeat, as it shows the thematic complement

She speaks up after listening in agonizing silence, Coker and Joe Lindsay discussing the values of beating women. The narrator first emphasizes that “Janie did what she had never done before, that is, thrust herself into the conversation” ; “Sometimes God gits familiar wid us womenfolks too and talks His inside business. He told me how surprised He was ‘bout y’all turning out so smart after Him makin’ yuh different; and how surprised y’all is goin’ tuh b if you ever find out you don’t know half as much ‘bout us as you” (p 88). God’s referred inside business terms as exclusive to women, making it as though women’s reality do not align with the expectations and reality of the world around

Each step in life brought forth her power of narrative, and “the light in her hand was like a spark of sun-stuff washing her face in fire” (p 227). To close, she pulls the great fishnet like horizon around her, “pulled it from around the waist of the world” and resides in the expanse of the sun (p 227). Phoeby then remarks to her, she “done growed ten feet higher from jus’ listenin’ tuh you, Janie” (p 236). Though, all this knowledge accrues not just from listening or talking but people “got tuh to go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh theyselves” (p 226). Each phase of life, her flesh and blood figure of dreams tumbled until it had its last and ultimate blossomy opening and ending. By showing the inside and outside, Hurston accesses the inner thoughts of Janie, it also shapes and allows Janie to discover her double-conscious and make use of her divine new story-telling and