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Analysis Of The Horizon In Their Eyes Were Watching God By Zora Neale Hurston

846 Words4 Pages

Throughout the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, author Zora Neale Hurston exploits and recognizes the certain standards that are set for women. Compared to their counterparts, women are perceived as a group that does not deserve the same daily rights as men. They are seen as “less than,” and are expected to get married and care for their spouse, prepare the dinner every evening, and make sure the house is neat and tidy. The protagonist, Janie Mae Crawford, faces this problem first hand with each of her three husbands. Without an easy fix to these problems, Janie views the horizon as her escape outlet and as a symbol of oppression. Zora Neale Hurston uses the motif of the horizon during the novel in order to make known the gap between the two sexes, and to demonstrate a woman’s thinking of her future as a free human being. To begin, Hurston manipulates the meaning of the horizon in order to symbolize the unfair difference between women and men. On the first page, Hurston is referencing dreams and she states that “for others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing” (Hurston 1). While this does refer to men and what the fact that their dreams are flexible and ever changing, she goes on to describe the dreams of women by saying, “the dreams is the truth” (1). Women face the hardship of having a future ahead of them that will predictably be dominated by men. In relation to Their Eyes Were Watching God, these men unintentionally force Janie to go

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