Janie Crawford: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Binish Iqbal
Dr. Faiza Zaheer
ENG-7201
1 July 2016
Identity is the most poignant and distressing theme in 20th century Afro American Novel. Justify. This does not come as a surprise to those, fairly acquainted with the mores of and motives behind the emergence of Afro American Novel, that it is well-informed and well-stocked with the historical struggles for identification on the part of Afro American community. No less important is the fact that, on the horizon of American Literature, it appeared in the wake of such political junctures as the formation of Jim Crow laws and anti-lynching movement; such social transmogrifications as Civil War and tactful disenfranchisement of most Blacks; and above all such literary rebellions as Racial Uplift

It is an attempt of historicisation of racial oppression as Jaine is granddaughter to a nanny raped by her white master and daughter to a mother raped by her teacher. But more than anything it is the story of a woman’s strife for identity and freedom against a patriarchal society and upbringing. During the course of novel, she marries three domineering men Logan Killicks, Jody Starks and Tea Cake with whom she experiences the roles of a domestic helper, a trophy wife and somehow an equal, respectively. And this intra-racial struggle between the two genders has ignited the attacks against novel from the critics who shared Hurston’s background. Nevertheless, hers is an apt description of Afro American society, based on

Tom Robinson’s trial, humiliation and eventual murder have been represented as fated by his coloured identity and the racial grudge is so real that it earns Atticus society’s disapproval and the title of “nigger-lover” when he decides to defend Tom. Boo Radley, similarly, is a nightmarish creature for the town’s children because his black identity renders him invisible. Scout’s portrayal is one of the emerging feminist in the south. She idealizes the