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Racial Pride In Their Eyes Were Watching God

1411 Words6 Pages

sabella Babao, Rebekah Bartkowski
Ms. Patrizio
Honors English 3
22 May 2023
A Harlem Renaissance Writer to Remember: Zora Neale Hurston As influential and enduring as the Harlem Renaissance was during the 1920s and early 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston was able to commemorate and portray hardships faced by Black-Americans through stories of African American women finding their true identity. Hurston connects the concepts of racial pride as well as realities of inequality during the Harlem Renaissance era in her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God and her autobiographical essay “How It Feels To Be Colored Me.” These ideas expressed in Hurston's writings both reflect and depart from Harlem Renaissance ideals strategically.
The Harlem Renaissance represented …show more content…

Hurston perfectly illustrates racial pride in her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. The main character, Janie, follows a path of finding her true cultural identity that was previously destroyed by controlling relationships. Janie’s second husband, Joe Starks, constantly insulted her looks to make him feel better about growing elder; He made her tie her hair up in a rag, so no one would see her beauty and the potential Janie had to become an independent woman. Once he passed away from kidney failure, however, Janie “tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair” (Hurston 87). This quote demonstrates Janie retrieving her freedom and pride after having it taken away from her while in an abusive relationship. Janie also demonstrates racial pride after her husband died because she expressed her true beauty, in which she was forced to hide in Joe's efforts to control Janie. During the Harlem Renaissance, women like Janie began to showcase their skills and break off from being controlled over. They began to work, creating books, singing, making music, and accomplishing more than an average person does in their lifetime. This was done all from an increase in determination and pride. Although their initial feelings of gaining pride can never be truly understood by …show more content…

The obstacles demonstrated in Hurstons’ writings encouraged growth within the Black-American community during the Harlem Renaissance. Zora communicated both the hardships and prosperities that people of color experienced during the Harlem Era, with her influential stories. The Harlem Renaissance was a pivotal moment in American history that resulted in Black-Americans being granted chances to gain personal and cultural freedom and progress toward equality. Black-American writers, singers, and musicians expressed their stories through artistic means. The Harlem Renaissance and Hurston's stories catalyzed a change in hope and prosperity for the Black American

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