Zora Neale's Parallelism

African Americans thrived in American culture during the 1920’s, as the Harlem Renaissance invigorated and empowered people of color to create artistic and literary works. The expressive movement allowed Africans to gain a new identify in America and prove their worth in a predominantly white society. The African American literary prolificacy soon ended as the Great Depression caused colored people to return back to their pre-established assumptions of artistic inadequacy and incompetence. The decline in the American economy increased political and social tensions, resulting in the return of African American discrimination. Zora Neale Hurston addresses the recurrent African oppression in the 1930’s with her publication, Their Eyes Were Watching

The parallelism allows for a comparison of similar descriptions in order to release Janie’s future happiness in life. When Janie first marries Logan, she realizes her discontent him and tries to wait for her marriage to improve. Hurston places a similar phrases together in order to signal Janie’s determination, to mainintin her marriage, fading. Hurston describes Janie’s dwindling resolve by expressing, “So Janie waited a bloom time, and a green time and an orange time,” which displays time deteriorating Janie and Logan’s marriage, as it was destined to fail eventually (25). The structural repetition of different “times” in Janie’s life parallels how quickly Janie’s life passes her by. Hurston symbolizes the seasons passing Janie’s youthful years, indicating the end of another part of Janie’s innocence and faith. As more times passes, Janie’s dream of love becomes shatters and her maturity quickly increases. Janie now experiences personal development which permits her to separate from her unpassionate relationship. The parallelism emphasizes how long Janie had waited to grow into a mature woman and explicates the foundation of future love beliefs. When Tea Cake and Janie become closer, Tea Cake introduces to fun activities that Janie has never been exposed to before, as Joe would not let her participate in leisure activities due to his insane jealousy. Hurston displays a new side of Janie actually enjoying her love life by asserting, “Tea Cake and Janie gone hunting. Tea Cake and Janie gone fishing. Tea Cake and Janie gone to Orlando to the movies. Tea Cake and Janie gone to a dance,” demonstrating Janie’s happiness that she has masked away or been forced to repress for years (110). The repetitive phrases of various activities parallel what the couple has already done together in their early relationship,