The Politics of Division: Zora Neale Hurston’s
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Alexandra de Brauw
11310774
Faculty of Humanities MA Thesis English Literature and Culture 30 June 2017 University of Amsterdam
Acknowledgments
I would like to give special thanks to my parents for their love and support and for acting as a continual source of inspiration. I am forever grateful to my siblings and best friends for their endless phone calls and kindness which kept me going. Finally, I would like to pay my regards to my supervisor, Dr Jochem Riesthuis, for his vital assistance and
Abstract
This thesis joins an ongoing debate surrounding Zora Neale Hurston’s political stance in her best-known work Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). Richard Wright’s infamous denunciation in a scathing review for New Masses in 1937 that “her novel carries no theme, no message, no thought” has inspired considerable research into the question of whether or not Hurston’s narrative is political (25). Although some scholars have recognised Their Eyes as a politically-charged text, the significance of Hurston’s utilisation of social divisions both within the self and within the community has not sufficiently been addressed. This thesis challenges Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s critical analysis which proposes that Hurston’s primary political objective was to “write the race fully into the human community” by depicting African-American voices on the printed page and celebrating folkloric verbal rituals (Signifying 185). In contrast, this thesis argues that Hurston’s innovative “speakerly text” predominantly aimed to bring race, gender, and class into an intersectional conversation to problematize the idea of American unity, by presenting the impossibility of internal and external unity, while at the same time striving for harmony (Signifying 195).
The aim of this thesis is to fill the theoretical gap concerning Hurston’s political ideas within the narrative’s sites of division by closely analysing the depiction of the fragmented American psyche and violent ruptures posed between individuals through voices, bodies, and places. This thesis demonstrates how Hurston utilises a dual-layered narrative strategy to subtly inspire political messages within an unsuspecting passive readership. Hurston effectively employs a superficially racialized narrative depicting microcosmic black
communities which latently embody social divides emblematic of America as a whole. Power dynamics and normative polarised social structures concerning race, gender, and class are assessed to expose America as entirely dichotomous and reveal Hurston’s fears that a united America could merely be a hopeful myth.
Declaration of Academic Integrity
I hereby declare that I have read the UvA Regulations on Fraud and Plagiarism. I am fully aware that failure to act in accordance with these regulations can result in severe consequences. I confirm that this thesis is entirely my own work and that contribution from other sources are fully acknowledged.
Contents
1 Introduction
2 Theoretical Approaches to Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God
2.1 Voice and Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of
African-American Literary Criticism (2014)
2.1.1 Signifyin(g)
2.1.2 Double-Voiced Discourse
2.1.3 The Speakerly Text and Free Indirect Discourse
2.2 Bodies and Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of
Identity (1990)
2.2.1 Language and the Body 2.2.2 The Inner/Outer Binary
2.2.3 “Having” versus “Being” and the Same/Other Binary
2.3 Spaces and Péter Gaál-Szabó’s “Ah done been tuh de horizon and back”: Zora
Neale Hurston’s Cultural Spaces in Their Eyes Were Watching God and Jonah’s Gourd Vine (2011)
2.3.1 Approaches to Space and Place 2.3.2 Non-Places and Liminal Spaces 2.3.3 Gendered Space
3 Their Eyes Were Watching God and the Politics of Voice
4 Their Eyes Were Watching God and Body Politics
5 Their Eyes Were Watching God and the Politics of Space
6 Conclusion 7 Works Cited
1 Introduction
This thesis contributes to the ongoing debate concerning the question of whether or not Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) is political. Although some academics have acknowledged the dichotomies in Their Eyes, the political significance of Hurston’s portrayal of sites of division which fragment the American psyche and pose violent ruptures between individuals, has not sufficiently been addressed. In her collection, The
Barbara Johnson Reader: The Surprise of Otherness, Barbara Johnson claims that Hurston
reveals “both the appeal and the injustice of universalization” (123). Moreover, Peter Messent argues in his collection New Readings of the American Novel: Narrative Theory and Its
Applications that Their Eyes works “to fundamentally challenge any notion of a unitary
American discourse” (287). In particular, Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s book The Signifying
Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism, originally published in 1988 and
celebrated for its extensive investigation of African-American authors, proposes that Hurston’s politics primarily lies in her ability to prove the capacity for the black dialect to sufficiently narrate a story. In contrast, this thesis argues that Hurston’s innovative “speakerly text” predominantly aimed to bring race, gender, and class into an intersectional conversation to problematize the idea of American unity, by presenting the impossibility of internal and external unity through African-American voices, bodies, and places, while at the same time striving for harmony (Gates Signifying 195). This thesis proposes that Their Eyes can be read as utilising a dual-layered narrative strategy which, from a liberal humanist and black
feminist perspective, initially concerns a superficially racialized narrative depicting African-American communities. Hurston then ties racial experience to gender and class politics, enabling the communities to latently act as microcosms representative of America as a whole to expose universal social divides. Thus, Their Eyes primarily works to reveal Hurston’s
greatest concern outlined in her autobiography Dust Tracks on a Road namely, “what makes a woman or man do such-and-so, regardless of his color” (151).
Written at the end of the Harlem Renaissance, or the “New Negro Movement”, Their
Eyes radically strayed from dominant political objectives to create an accurate image of the
African-American and promote an understanding of black culture. In the Harlem
Renaissance, prominent black writers, such as Alain Locke and Jean Toomer, displayed an overtly left-wing racial pride which challenged prevailing stereotypical and racist
assumptions of African-Americans by exposing socio-political injustices concerning equality and respect. Consequently, upon initial release of Their Eyes, Hurston was heavily criticised by her male contemporaries, especially Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright, who, as Gates explains in his article “A Negro Way of Saying”, condemned her work as “socially
unconscious” (1). In particular, Wright infamously asserted “her characters […] swing like a pendulum eternally in that safe and narrow orbit in which America likes to see the Negro live: between laughter and tears” in his review for New Masses, believing Hurston prudently and cowardly avoided serious issues concerning black life (25). In direct response to male dominated criticism, female African-American writers such as Mary Helen Washington, in her article “The Black Woman’s Search for Identity”, later proposed “The black writer sometimes gets his eyes so fixed on the white world […] Black people are more than simply reactors, we have laughter, tears, and loving that are far removed from the white horror” (68). Thus, for Hurston, and numerous female black literary figures (Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, and Zadie Smith to name a few) she posthumously influenced, racial equality and the
proposition of black culture as distinct were of less significance in comparison to the disclosure of social and philosophical issues such as the struggles for sexual equality.
Alice Walker considered Hurston her literary foremother and radically fought to win recognition of her work. In March 1975, Walker published her article “In Search of Zora
Neale Hurston” in Ms. Magazine, initiating her revival. Additionally, in her anthology I Love
Myself When I Am Laughing, Walker expressed Their Eyes “speaks to me as no novel past or
present has ever done”, particularly for its prioritisation of African-American artistic
expression (2). By “Signifyin(g)” (Gates Signifying 26) upon existing black literature, Their
Eyes contributes to the African-American tradition of formal revision in literature which
became “the central arena in which persons of African descent could, or could not, establish and redefine their status within the human community” (Signifying 141). Although this thesis will approach revision as a less significant political literary goal in Their Eyes, it is worth recognising the ways in which Hurston created a divide between herself and the movement she derogatorily labelled the “sobbing school of Negrohood” in her essay “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” (153). Notably, Hurston Signifies upon Frederick Douglass’ apostrophe to the ships in his book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) by employing two chiasmuses in the opening paragraphs to establish gender distinctions as the most salient focal point in the narrative. Moreover, Hurston Signifies upon the binary dialectic depicted in Jean Toomer’s novel Cane (1923) to create a text predicated on dichotomies. Hurston
additionally recognises that, as George Hutchinson explains in his article “Jean Toomer and American Racial Discourse”, “‘mullatoes’––because they threatened the racial bifurcation-––‘disappeared’ as a group into either the white ‘race’ (through passing) or the black ‘race’”, enabling the mixed-race protagonist to face radical intraracial power struggles representative of America’s gender and class related plight (229).
Throughout her literary career, Hurston was considered highly controversial, antithetical, and complicated. Markedly, while recognised as a staunch black nationalist, Hurston was most commonly perceived as a naïve political conservative who rejected the significance of racial experience by critics and contemporaries alike. In Dust Tracks, Hurston states that “Negroes are just like anybody else. […] Racial Solidarity is a fiction and always
will be” (242). Thus, this thesis proposes that Hurston depicts several black communities which intimate a sense of cohesion based on their shared race alone, only to exploit this reading by latently rendering racial experience universally American and proposing dichotomous power struggles infiltrate all aspects of life in America. Moreover, Hurston’s politics mainly concerns the “oldest human longing – self revelation”, deeming an
understanding of the self and one’s position within the socio-cultural space as a process which has wider political ramifications in comparison to communal race solidarity, which effectively further enforces problematic divides (Their Eyes 9). Hurston’s concern with individual struggles grew from her interest in ethnographic research. Under the supervision of renowned anthropologist Franz Boas of Columbia University, Hurston received her B.A. in Anthropology in 1928 and travelled throughout the Caribbean and American South collecting folklore. In 1937, Hurston wrote Their Eyes in seven weeks while conducting fieldwork in Haiti, inspired by the all-black town Eatonville in Florida where she spent her childhood and her passionate relationship with fellow graduate student Percival Punter. By the 1940s, Hurston faced increasing difficulty publishing her work and fell into obscurity shortly after. Hurston predominantly worked as a maid until her untimely death in 1960.
Their Eyes is a frame story which starts with Janie Crawford-Killicks-Starks-Woods’
return to Eatonville. Reunited with her best friend Phoeby Watson on the “back porch”, Janie recounts the story of her life’s quest for self-knowledge through an extended flashback (5). Her story begins with a memory of a photograph Janie took with white children her
grandmother looked after in which she discovers she is black, exposing Nanny’s inability to shield Janie from the real world. Now sixteen-years-old, Janie’s sexual awakening under the pear tree, and later her kiss with Johnny Taylor witnessed by horrified Nanny, reveals her early descent into womanhood. Nanny lectures Janie on her belief that “De nigger woman is de mule uh de world” (19) and her hope that Janie’s life could be different to herself and
Janie’s mother’s (both raped by white men), if she finds a wealthy husband to protect and enable her to “take a stand on high ground” (22). Thus, Nanny’s racialized denunciation, which Janie later comes to pity, is primarily predicated on dreams adhering to normative gender and class social roles. Before her premature death, Nanny arranges Janie’s marriage with Logan Killicks, who has sixty acres and a mule, by convincing Janie she will eventually fall in love. After Logan leaves to buy a second mule so Janie can also plough the fields, Janie waits in the yard and meets Joe Starks (Jody) on his way to Eatonville. Joe proclaims Janie’s life would be better if he were her husband and so, hoping for a second chance at love, Janie runs away with him (37).
After Joe and Janie marry, they travel to Eatonville where Joe becomes the mayor, postmaster, and significant landowner. Eventually, Janie recognises herself as property used to confirm Joe’s powerful social position as he controls her identity by deciding when she speaks, what she wears, and criticises her mistakes to create the perfect image of “de mayor’s wife” (80). Although Joe allows Janie to work in the store, he forbids her from participating in Signifyin(g) rituals which occur on the store porch. Consequently, Janie “learned how to talk some and leave some” (102) compelling her exterior self to follow Joe’s rules,
recognising that “She had an inside and an outside now” (97). Remarkably, Janie finally reacts to Joe’s denigration by Signifyin(g) upon his appearance in the store. Shortly after, Joe dies leaving Janie a wealthy attractive widow. After various propositions, forty-year-old Janie meets much younger fun-loving Tea Cake. They fall in love before moving to the Everglades. Tea Cake tells Janie to join him in picking beans on “the muck”, allowing them to play together day and night (9). The pair become an integral part of the community, opening their house to friends in the evening for Signifyin(g) and games. Here, Janie can participate in the predominantly male rituals. Their somewhat idyllic life is destroyed when, running from a hurricane, Tea Cake is bitten by a rabid dog and rapidly descends into madness. Threatening
to kill Janie, she shoots Tea Cake in self-defence. After Janie is acquitted of murder, she returns to Eatonville where she tells her story to Phoeby. As can be seen from this synopsis, although Hurston depicts social dichotomies through racial experiences, Janie’s quest primarily focuses on power dynamics which enforce politicised divides concerning gender and class.
2 Theoretical Approaches to Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God
2.1 Voice and Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of
African-American Literary Criticism (2014)
2.1.1 Signifyin(g)
Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s critical approach to the relationship between
African-American and African-American literary and linguistic traditions in his book The Signifying Monkey:
A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism provides a detailed analysis of Signifyin(g).
The uppercase term, Signifyin(g), coined by Gates himself, highlights the African-American trope’s simultaneous similarity and dissimilarity with “white” signifying. Additionally, the bracketed “g” mimics the difference in pronunciation intrinsic to the black vernacular. Gates expresses that there is a “literal meta-confrontation within the structure of the sign” as the semantic register, which exists in standard English, is replaced with a rhetorical register in Signifyin(g) (52). The received signifier, which depends on the total eradication of
unconscious associations between words for clarity, is substituted with a signifier reliant upon ambiguity, disorder, and juxtaposition. Signification exploits the arbitrary relations between rhetorical and semantic meanings that act as visual and aural “puns on a word […] which a speaker draws on for figurative substitutions” to humorously name a person or situation (55). In Their Eyes, Coker explains “You got a willing mind, but youse too light behind” to Hicks, Signifyin(g) both a light conscience and upright principles as a critical evaluation masked as a compliment (51). Masculine social spaces such as “Tea Cake’s house” (208) are also ideal for “playin’ de dozens” (106) which “depends so heavily on humor and […] on insults of one’s family members, especially one’s mother” (Signifying
108). Tea Cake’s communal song which begins “Yo’ mama don’t wear no Draws” is a play on words which puns upon past rituals (209).
Gates explains that “one does not signify something; rather, one signifies in some
way” (59). Signifyin(g) is, therefore, an encoded speech act or technique which applies
open-ended figurative language to destabilise meaning and misdirect its listener. In Their Eyes, this rhetorical strategy is utilised by the “mule-talkers” (68) to continually trick Matt Bonner into believing there is a “Mighty serious matter” concerning his mule (69). Signifyin(g) utilises implication and indirection which relies on shared cultural knowledge for the accurate deciphering of hidden meanings and intentions. Moreover, suspense and unease are critical to the art of Signifyin(g) to ensure the masked spoken word incites enough rage in the listener to inspire an exciting linguistic battle. The African-American trope encompasses all black vernacular rhetorical play to comprise adorning tropes such as “metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony (the master tropes), and also hyperbole, litotes, and metalepsis” (57). According to Gates, Hurston employs both “Mind-pictures” (22) and “thought pictures” throughout Their Eyes to successfully imitate classical African-American oral narration (68). For example, Gates interprets moments such as when Janie notes “they’s a lost ball in de high grass” (7) to comment on the gossiping women of Eatonville, described using the double-descriptive “Mouth-Almighty”, as evidence of the linguistic proficiency of the black vernacular (7). Thus, Signifyin(g) is additionally “an indirect use of words that changes the meaning of a word or words” (Signifying 88) to “cut de monkey” (Their Eyes 56).
2.1.2 Double-Voiced Discourse
Gates’ Signification shares similarities with Mikhail Bakhtin’s understanding of “double-voiced discourse” in his essay “Discourse Typology in Prose” (185), predominantly due to “the hidden, or internal, polemic” (Signifying 120) occurring within the sign because
Signification involves a “formal revision that is at all points double-voiced” (Signifying 26). The core conflict arises because black rhetorical utterances simultaneously Signify upon the semantic register associated with “formal language use and its conventions, conventions established, at least officially, by middle-class white people” (52). Thus, the signifier unavoidably retains its original received (white) meaning alongside its newfound rhetorical status. In addition to “(re)doubling” meaning within the sign and through textual mimicry, Signification produces lexical structures that are double-voiced insofar as they collapse the distinction between white and black discourses (54). Gates explains that the audience of a double-voiced word or “co-talkin’”, as suggested in Their Eyes, is intended to hear the point of view of both the original semantic utterance as well as the African-American modified meaning (47). Therefore, this “Bivocalism” (225) requires a skilled ear to decode and separate the vernacular language from its received counterpart to be able to recognise the masked use of “troping”, wordplay, and pastiche (74). Nanny’s lengthy speech to Janie in which she explains that “Ah wanted yuh to […] pick from a higher bush and a sweeter berry” requires the reader to recognise both Nanny’s literal semantic intention to provide Janie with the greatest sustenance and quality of life and the rhetorical meaning alluding to Janie’s choice of husband (18).
Gates suggests that “Signifyin(g) is black double-voicedness; because it always entails formal revision and an intertextual relation”, thereby forging a correlated literary tradition predicated on concurrent similarity while also exhibiting historical differences (56). Gates acknowledges the significance of “the formal manner in which texts seem concerned to address their antecedents” (56) by Signifyin(g) upon existing African-American literature to create a “textual grounding through revision” and write the black identity into being (185). Notably, Hurston draws upon this desire to imitate the traditions and figures used in earlier black literature by echoing literary voices from the past. For example, according to Gates, the
structure of Their Eyes Signifies upon Toomer’s Cane in which “the presence of the oral voice retains its primarily antiphonal function” (Signifying 192). Toomer employs African-American speech patterns and pronunciation in his literary representation within dialectical exchanges such as when Halsey explains “(in a mock religious tone): […] The white folks get the boll; th niggers get th stalk, An don’t you dare touch th boll, or even look at it. They’ll swing y sho” (Cane 217). Hurston similarly utilises the African-American lexicon in direct speech as, for example, when Nanny explains that “Ah’d take a cook-pot and throw up a highway through de wilderness for her”, she utilises both figurative language and action words intrinsic to the black vernacular (22). Moreover, formal revision inherent to African-American literature focuses on the question of an “authentic” black voice as writers aim to prove the capabilities of African-Americans as speaking subjects to transcend linguistic oppression (185).
2.1.3 The Speakerly Text and Free Indirect Discourse
Gates defines “the speakerly text” as “a text whose rhetorical strategy is designed to represent an oral literary tradition” by imitating vocal techniques, such as metaphor and metonymy, fundamental in Signifyin(g) rituals (195). Gates proposes in a speakerly text, “all other structural elements seem to be devalued” because the oral narrative strategy, which mimics the legacy of orality crucial to traditional African-American literature, predominantly works to accentuate the speech patterns and the intricate semantic/rhetorical structure of the black vernacular (195). According to Gates, “a speakerly text would seem primarily to be oriented toward imitating one of the numerous forms of oral narration to be found in classical African-American vernacular literature” and is, therefore, principally invested in displaying the multifaceted capabilities of black dialect as opposed to aiding the theme or plot (195– 196). In particular, emulating the quality and complexity of African-American language and
revealing the conflict between black vernacular speech and the standard English written text, are important objectives for the speakerly novel. In Their Eyes, “third and first person, oral and written voices, oscillate freely” to create a multi-vocal narrative in which traditional modes of African-American storytelling and the playfulness of the black vernacular are celebrated (26). Thus, for Gates, the speakerly text is designed to make the white written word speak in a black voice. Thus, when Joe Starks’ voice subverts the standard English indirect narration so that it comes to represent his speech patterns, noting that “Joe Starks was the name, yeah Joe Starks from in and through Georgy. Been workin’ for white folks all his life. Saved up some money”, the black vernacular is prioritised (37).
Hurston’s innovative use of free indirect discourse “is an utterance that no one could have spoken, yet which we recognize because of its characteristic ‘speakerliness,’ its
paradoxically written manifestation of the aspiration to the oral” (Signifying 223). This irony occurs because the free indirect discourse acts as “a written voice masked as a speakerly voice” which comments upon moments unseen by characters and perspectives that move beyond the boundaries of communication (261). Remarkably, Gates explains that Hurston merges elements of direct and indirect speech to “create a new voice, a voice exactly as black as it is white” (269). For example, instances such as when the free indirect voice, or third voice, asks “Who was it didn’t know about the love between Tea Cake and Janie?” are bivocal utterances, which Gates believes, resolves the historical tension between the two languages and, at times, offers an extraordinary glimpse into a character’s mind (247). Hence, Gates suggests that Hurston’s free indirect discourse is a third language which remains outside of the black vernacular and standard English dialects in the novel, enabling it to act as a mediator between them. Furthermore, free indirect discourse in Their Eyes is an “attempt to remove the distinction between repeated speech and represented events” and, consequently, works to collapse and critique the fundamental distinctions between mimesis and diegesis
(224). Notably, Gates proposes this merging enables the free indirect discourse to forge an intimate relationship with the reader, thereby ensuring the novel’s connection with the real world.
2.2 Bodies and Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of
Identity (1990)
2.2.1 Language and the Body
In her book, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Judith Butler questions the extent to which “‘identity’ is an effect of discursive practices” by analysing the relationship between language and identity through the dividing terms “sex” and “gender” (18). Butler proposes that the repetition of binaries such as male/female and
masculine/feminine in public discourse normalises polarised thinking. In particular, the culture/nature binary, linked to masculinity and femininity respectively, renders “the structure of signification on the model of domination” by endorsing hierarchies that facilitate culture to inflict meaning on nature (37). In Their Eyes, the masculinised front porch is “the center of the world” because the men linguistically and visually bring women into being (86). Thus, gender becomes a culturally constructed performance “understood as a signification that an (already) sexually differentiated body assumes, but even that signification exists only in relation to another, opposing signification” (9). The gendered body as a sign is reliant on the Other to construct meaning because an individual is only feminine to the extent that they are not masculine. Therefore, language works to restrict the body. Janie’s transition from a youthful beauty with “plentiful hair” (40) to an “ole woman” (106) remains in stark contrast to the male body, particularly the “irresistible maleness” of Joe Starks (107). This dichotomy occurs because, as Butler paraphrases Jacques Lacan’s postulation in his essay “The Meaning
of the Phallus”, “the paternal law structures all linguistic signification, termed ‘the
Symbolic,’ and so becomes a universal organizing principle of culture itself” discursively characterising the social position of “femininity” and female bodies (79).
Butler’s critique of Julia Kristeva’s concept outlined in her book Revolution in Poetic
Language, in which, as Butler explains, “the ‘semiotic’ is a dimension of language
occasioned by that primary maternal body, which […] serves as a perpetual source of subversion within the Symbolic” offers insight into the capabilities of poetic language (79). Although Butler agrees the maternal body and poetry are linked, in contrast to Kristeva’s theory, she suggests that subversion must come “from within the repressed interior of culture itself”, rather than beyond the cultural space (86). The Symbolic cannot entirely be refused as the paternal law is instilled within the structures of language and politics, therefore to
challenge the law, the law must be used against itself. Consequently, Janie only liberates herself when her body can confront the gendered spatial divide by Signifyin(g) upon Jody in his shop. Notably, “Janie took the middle of the floor to talk right into Jody’s face” to controversially assert herself as a revolutionary female centripetal force (105). According to Butler, “As a return to the maternal body […] poetic language becomes especially threatening when uttered by women” (86). Thus, Butler agrees with Kristeva that the Symbolic must reject the mother whereas “the semiotic, through rhythm, assonance, intonations, sound play, and repetition, re-presents or recovers the maternal body in poetic speech”, and so the female body can utilise the multiple and irrepressible semantic meanings offered through poetry, or Signification in Janie’s case, to challenge the dominant univocal phallogocentric discourses employed in masculine spaces (82).
2.2.2 The Inner/Outer Binary
Butler reveals the regulatory nature of “the internal coherence of gender, and the binary framework for both sex and gender” to suggest that both enforce the politically-motivated restrictions which produce bodies (33). She proposes that a gendered structure for normative external behaviours is utilised in social space to indicate a coherent interior psychology which, when adhered to by all members of a community, benefits the oppressive masculine power regimes. In Their Eyes, although Janie’s interior self yearns to participate in Signifyin(g) rituals, Joe denies her proficient and equal mind because “He didn’t want her talking after such trashy people” (71) and is conditioned and constrained by social practices and linguistic parameters because Joe believes women “sho don’t think none theirselves” (95). Therefore, he must control Janie’s thoughts and behaviour so that her actions remain appropriate. Gender-as-performance necessitates the need for “inner” and “outer” identities to coalesce because the united body justifies male/female and masculine/feminine divides. In fact, as merely a series of unrelated non-dichotomous signs forced into apparent coercion, the female body is ubiquitously sexualised to become a cohesive object dominated discursively and visually to allow the paternal law to create an unquestionable reality (114). Ironically, Butler notes that “gender is a discursive principle, a tool of subjection, one that resists the very notion of unity” (118). Therefore, the entire concept of gender relies on a hierarchy of difference which must eventually reckon with the subversive female body (Janie) aware of her inherent fragmented state.
The inner/outer binary acts as “a border and boundary tenuously maintained for the purposes of social regulation and control” to govern the desired conduct of the coherent social body (133). Butler notes that the heteronormative signs which mediate between the “inner” and “outer” constructs enforce a naturalised unified gender by encouraging the passive body to act as the locus of contingent sexual identity. Both culturally fabricated
structures are intermingled however, if the “subject is challenged, the meaning and necessity of the terms are subject to displacement” (134). Thus, the system which consolidates
sexuality and the female identity is questioned when her interior space “no longer designates a topos” (134). In Their Eyes, after Joe “slapped Janie until she had a ringing in her ears” (96) she finally appreciates that “She had an inside and an outside” as she understands the
potential for the non-coherent body to be exploited as a survival tactic (97). Janie’s total divide between her interior and exterior selves existed prior to her recognition however, in this moment, Hurston is able to expose the subversive capabilities of the acknowledged fragmented American female body and psyche. Moreover, Butler draws upon Michel
Foucault’s definition in his book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison to determine the soul as “a surface signification that contests and displaces the inner/outer distinction” because it is simultaneously signified on the body but remains invisible as a lack to suggest that the soul legitimises the performativity of the “outer” body (135). However, for Hurston, Janie’s soul is the only element which is beyond masculine control, therefore at the end of the novel when Janie is fully able to control her interior and exterior selves, “She called in her soul to come and see” (259).
2.2.3 “Having” versus “Being” and the Same/Other Binary
The paternal law manifests in impossible binaries such as “having” versus “being” the Phallus. Drawing upon Lacan’s theory of the phallus, Butler indicates “women […] signify the Phallus through ‘being’ its Other, its absence, its lack, the dialectical confirmation of its identity” (44). Thus, ironically, women who lack the Phallus are the Phallus. Notably, Joe’s performance of virility in Their Eyes is dependent on Janie as Eatonville recognises a “’oman lak dat” can only belong to an important man (51). Signifyin(g) on the word “lack” to suggest “Janie lacks that”, this statement suggests that Hurston’s depiction of women aligns with
Lacan’s phallic concept. Nonetheless, Butler states that women’s illusory masculinity and autonomy is eventually revealed, establishing a divide between the sexes and therefore, the need for patriarchal rule allowing the paternal law to extend its power. Lacan proposes the female body must enact a “‘masquerade’” in “being” the Phallus which insinuates that women possess an alternative identity prior to their phallic state (Gender 47). Markedly, Janie’s alternate identity is evidenced as “gradually, she pressed her teeth together and learned to hush” (95); a temporary phallic mask which enables her to disguise her primary desires from Jody who “she wants to castrate” (Gender 52). Ultimately, the female body aspires to subvert its objectification and destroy the gendered divide by taking the place of a privileged male speaker to become a speaking subject in public space. Engaging in public discourse means that “women speak their way out of their gender” by relinquishing their status as a sign-object to establish their subjectivity, a task which Janie eventually fulfils (117).
Butler intimates that the Same/Other binary is a false distinction, revealed by Luce Irigaray in her book Speculum of the Other Woman, because the categorical separation creates “the illusion of a symmetrical difference which consolidates the metaphysical economy of phallogocentrism, the economy of the same” (Gender 103). Butler describes Irigaray’s concept as masculine constructions from which the feminine faces total exclusion. The female body “eludes the univocal signification characteristic of the Symbolic, and because it is not a substantive identity, but always and only an undetermined relation of difference to the economy which renders it absent”, it is limited to acting as a surface upon which the masculine identity reflects his own image (103). Throughout her marriages, Janie is required to perform a “show of humbleness” in her role as property because the female body, in its radical disparity, cannot be qualified as a subject in possession of its own agency or identity and is, therefore, rendered an unfeasible participant in the Same/Other binary
(107). Consequently, female bodies remain abstract concepts which “cannot be thought”, meaning they become a site of absence, permitting the total exclusion of women from the Signifyin(g) economy (Gender 10). Masculine interaction presents the Same/Other binary as Joe becomes Eatonville’s Other because “he talks tuh unlettered folks wid books in his jaws,” forcing the male dynamic along dichotomous poles (66). Nonetheless, the narrator later notes in the utopian Everglades “muck” (9) that “everything on that job went on around” Janie and her third husband Tea Cake as Janie enters the binary opposition, exposing Hurston’s fears that in the “real word”, the problematic divisions are inescapable (179).
2.3 Spaces and Péter Gaál-Szabó’s “Ah done been tuh de horizon and back”: Zora
Neale Hurston’s Cultural Spaces in Their Eyes Were Watching God and Jonah’s Gourd Vine (2011)
2.3.1 Approaches to Space and Place
Péter Gaál-Szabó’s comprehensive analysis in his book “Ah done been tuh de horizon
and back”: Zora Neale Hurston’s Cultural Spaces in Their Eyes Were Watching God and Jonah’s Gourd Vine examines the ramifications and radical differences which lie between the
phenomenological and post-Marxist conceptions of space and place. Firstly, Gaál-Szabó explains that the phenomenological approach recognises the subject as the principal authority which determines the construction of space. Notably, the individual “enlivens and organizes space around him/herself” enabling the active construction of an independent world which is, at times, distinct from the dominant socio-cultural location to enact a spatial divide (115). Gaál-Szabó’s theoretical approach leans heavily on Martin Heidegger’s fundamental spatial concept outlined in his book Being and Time, additionally referring to “Dasein as the node of being” and the stance that connects individuals to the world (16). Dasein means that the
subject participates in a complex interrelated relationship with space that allows a person to scrutinise and familiarise themselves with the surroundings that exist outside of their construction to create a sense of internal belonging. Markedly, in Their Eyes, the narrative truly begins once Phoeby finds Janie after she “went in the intimate gate [and] found her sitting on the steps of the back porch with the lamps all filled” (5). Utilising “habitus-directed bodily activity,” which actively determines the way in which an individual interacts with the world, both women alter the space by endowing it with a personal meaning and sense of stability (19). The narrator notes that “Janie ate heartily and said nothing”, as Phoeby, with the help of her home-cooked rice, creates a comfortable environment for Janie’s confession (6).
In contrast to phenomenological conceptions of space-construction, post-Marxist thinkers view space as the dominant force which creates the subject. Gaál-Szabó infers this reversed understanding of space assumes “that the human subject has a limited scope of action of his/her social environment” because a person’s behaviour is conditioned and controlled by the discourses of those in power (13). Notably, an initial racial divide is employed in Their Eyes when Tea Cake is ordered by white men to bury the dead, stating “don’t lemme ketch none uh y’all dumpin’ white folks, and don’t be wastin’ no boxes on colored” because Anglo-American’s govern the space (228). Gaál-Szabó finds that post-Marxist thinkers position the subject “in the focal point of discourse, such as the capitalist state, race, gender, or class, that determine the quality of action for the subject” (13).
Dominant (white) political discourses restrict subjects by stripping them of their agency and permanently determines all internal and external bodily actions of individuals deemed of lower rank within an immediate place. For example, Joe who owns the shop, and thereby the space, is able to force Janie outside the masculine realm by demanding “why don’t you go on and see whut Mrs. Bogle want” (73)? Gaál-Szabó recalls Heidegger’s notion of “‘anxiety’
[…] as a disturbance that allows for the possibility of (spatial) production of the subject” because this anxious instance prevents the self-revelation necessary for Dasein to authorise an individual to construct space (21). Thus, Janie must first overcome her anxiety regarding gender and class hierarchies to challenge the dominant discourse and gain agency.
2.3.2 Non-Places and Liminal Spaces
Gaál-Szabó characterises non-places as locations which “can signify antipictures of places; that is, they can function as counterplaces to oppose mainstream power settings” and exist in contradistinction to the dominant socio-cultural place (51–52). This construction offers an alternative discourse to mainstream political ideologies, acts as a means to
overcome categorical social constraints, and as a way to oppose subversive discourses. Gaál-Szabó determines that “the muck” (9) is a non-place because, as Janie recalls, “The men held big arguments here like they used to on the store porch. Only here, she could listen and laugh and even talk some herself is she wanted to” (179–180). In this location, Hurston presents idyllic interactions which overcome social divides. However, paradoxically, non-places cannot be considered as more than “places of transition”, in fact, they can never truly be real places (51). Non-places are subjective ahistorical locations such as roads which,
hypothetically, are perceived as existing outside of space and time to performatively generate a deeply personal meaning for an individual and offer potentialities considered highly
important. Nonetheless, the space, as well as the conceptions and opportunities it promises, exist as constant sources of perplexity to outsiders who view the non-place as irrelevant. Drawing upon Marc Augé’s theory in his book Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology
of Supermodernity, Gaál-Szabó discerns that non-places can produce “a shared attribute of
meta-level” (63). Thus, the subjective non-place can become a communal location, or a place of transition, which offers collective prospects.
Although liminal spaces exclusively remain “Antithetical to the main discourse of the community, they construct a set of essential structural elements” which prove vital for the subject (65). Markedly, much of Janie’s journey centres around liminal spaces which enact a divide between herself and the “real world”. For example, she often goes “to the pear tree continuously wondering and thinking” to greater understand herself and the community in which she lives (28). The narrator reveals that this natural location symbolically becomes an omnipresent metaphor for her growing knowledge as “Janie saw her life like a great tree” and so by residing in this location, she can assess her experiences (11). Similar to non-places, the peripheral and marginal nature of folkloric liminal spaces causes the subjects which function within them to initially become outsiders to the community, yet also firmly rooted within the socio-cultural space. This process occurs because liminal spaces juxtapose religion and culture to become a contemplative paradigm, as Janie’s “pear tree” acts as a crossroads between voodoo worship and the ideologies of the socio-cultural space to allow her to connect with the world and resolve internal conflicts (5). Notably, echoing W. E. B. Du Bois’ assertion in his book The Souls of Black Folk, Gaál-Szabó states “liminality or transition can be considered the general and ‘permanent condition’ of African Americans” because a black individual must mediate between interior and exterior identities, which are indicative of diverse experiences, and hybridise them within one body (79). Thus, liminal spaces can productively support African-Americans in confronting their identity conflicts.
2.3.3 Gendered Space
Gaál-Szabó indicates that “transparent space denotes masculine space, which is conceptualized as homogenous and contested” as the world is an intelligible and accessible
space for males, which is the antithesis for females (82). The socio-cultural space is inevitably masculine because “agency is assigned to language (voice), and, by the same token, language constructs place” (89). The female body is discursively positioned outside of the public linguistic realm (gender is, therefore, a spatial construct), thus denying women a voice beyond enclosed domestic spaces, rendering them invisible and immobile. In contrast, masculine space is transparent because it facilitates the hypervisibility of the male body and their dominant hierarchical position as “the center of the world” in Their Eyes (86).
Nonetheless, Gaál-Szabó acknowledges that women can coexist in public spaces, but are obligated to maintain marginalised or invisible background positions as Janie is forced to take on the role of shopkeeper to the extent that “She had come to hate the inside of that store” (72). Moreover, Gaál-Szabó emphasises spatial discourse as predominantly concerned with the interrelationship of bodies and spaces, noting that the home is an indoctrinating feminine space owned and controlled by males which “has the function of mediating the discursive acts of regulating the body” (85). In Their Eyes, the kitchen and bedroom are inflexible feminine spaces designed to oppress women by negating their subjectivity to become a site of surveillance, as the narrator recalls “Janie could be seen through the window getting settled” (48).
The domineering nature of transparent space means women must create alternative locations which “function as individual centers of meaning enframed by the masculine social space; that is, apart from it, opposing it, yet depending on it for identity” (101). Using Teresa de Lauretis’ term “space-off” employed in her collection Technologies of Gender: Essays on
Theory, Film, and Fiction to denote “place elsewhere”, Gaál-Szabó proposes in this distinct
site, women construct an individual identity by actively opposing gender and class
expectations enforced culturally within transparent space (101). Nevertheless, Gaál-Szabó reveals feminine space, much like its masculine counterpart, has an inbuilt hierarchical
structure determined by social proponents. Thus, despite efforts to separate gendered spaces and escape subversive discourses, social restrictions will inevitably infiltrate the autonomous space-off. Occasionally, individuals within the space-off, who at first appear to offer an element of retreat and self-identification, are exposed as agents that naturalise binary-thinking. For example, “in her grandma’s house” (15–16), Janie is given a lengthy speech about “colored women sittin’ on high,” which initially appears to comfort and direct her but instead, from a psychoanalytic perspective, penetrates Janie’s unsuspecting psyche with normative class-related bi-polarities (22). Gaál-Szabó describes this act as “motherwit” because female elders effectively socialise individuals into hierarchical transparent space (99). Lastly, Gaál-Szabó advocates mental space as a space-off because “Memory offers […] both a spatiality of subjectivity and a challenge to the dominant (masculine) social space” (81). The imagination remains imperceptible as long as individuals subsist in a place which harbours creativity, so recollections of the past are freed from heteronormative thinking to become subversive.
3 Their Eyes Were Watching God and the Politics of Voice
In his analysis of Hurston’s Their Eyes, Gates proposes that “the very subject of this text would appear to be not primarily Janie’s quest but the emulation of the phonetic, grammatical, and lexical structures of actual speech” (211). Therefore, Gates focuses on the imitation of oral narration on the printed page as the novel’s principal political aim, one which flaunts the capabilities of the black voice and generates an African-American literary tradition through revision. Consequently, although he acknowledges the “metaphors of inside and outside” applied in the novel, Gates’ analysis explicitly ignores the wider political ramifications of Hurston’s decision to explore sites of division and oppression as enabling acts of domination, predominantly in regards to race, gender, and class, beyond Signifyin(g) (196). In contrast, this thesis approaches Janie’s internal bifurcation and her quest for self-knowledge as a superficial racial plotline which deflects attention from exposure of the violent effects of gender and class American hierarchies. Poignantly, in his article “Politics and Rhetoric in the Novel in the 1930s”, William Solomon suggests that “The 1930s are most fruitfully characterized as a period during which many novelists were searching for
alternative, noncanonical methods of intervening in the political realm” (815). Therefore,
Their Eyes can be read as utilising a dual-layered narrative strategy which presents
microcosmic black communities that enable Hurston to covertly tie her politics to her greatest concern outlined in Dust Tracks, namely “what makes a woman or man do such-and-so, regardless of his color” (151). To suggest that racial experience is universal, Hurston depicts power struggles within the self and within the community that speak widely for America’s disunity. Thus, Hurston aimed to subtly expose her fears regarding social fractures within America to a multiracial readership to prompt a paradigm shift in perceptions of U.S. social stratification.
In addition to depicting Hurston’s personal anthropological admiration of black folklore, we can also see allusions to Du Bois’s “double consciousness” (14) concept of “two warring ideals in one dark body” in Their Eyes which are tied to gender and class (3).
Markedly, Gates proposes that the black vernacular direct discourse and indirect standard English “lyrical and disembodied yet individual voice” which acts as an omniscient third-person narrator, represent Janie’s split identity (Signifying 198). Thus, Hurston exposes the micro-politics of subjectivity by making the personal political and reveals the macro-politics of cultural economic systems to present the psychological and physical divide (Janie
“watched the shadow of herself going about tending store”) of the African-American identity (103). Gates believes Janie’s voice is the literary representation of the bifurcated black experience, which is an internal conflict between what circumscribes their African-American self and external mainstream identity that adheres to Anglo-American standards, as a dual idiomatic “rhetoric of division” (Signifying 218). For Gates, the story-within-a-story framing device facilitates Janie’s control as when she explains to her friend Phoeby “’taint no use in me telling you somethin’ unless Ah give you de understandin’ to go ’long wid it”, her role as narrator is evidenced (10). Gates’ earlier article, “A Negro Way of Saying”, suggests that Hurston presents “the psychological fragmentation of modernity and the black American” to target contemporary notions of scientific racism which classified the African-American as inferior and uncomplicated, however, Gates’ analysis of divides never moves beyond Janie’s internal division (1). Moreover, Hurston’s hidden political agenda reveals both the human experience concerning power divides and Barbara Johnson’s belief that “The female voice can be universally described as divided” (123). Janie’s quest to understand herself largely disguises Hurston’s implementation of political messages within an unsuspecting passive readership, a political tactic which skilfully aligns with the “hypodermic model” of the 1930s outlined in Melanie Green’s article “Linking Self and Others through Narrative” (101).
After Hurston’s latent exposure of the myth of a united America is acknowledged, the omniscient third-person narrator can be viewed as an entirely separate voice because she “reports thoughts, feelings, and events that Janie could not possibly have heard or seen” (Signifying 211). For example, the narrator criticises the townsfolk at the mule funeral which “mocked everything human in death” (81); an event which Janie was prohibited from
attending for its “commonness” and a denunciation that contradicts her sustained appreciation of hyperbolic Signifyin(g) rituals (80). The reader must look beyond the narrative of Janie’s quest to recognise the narrator and multiple speakers that commandeer the narration as the collective, yet individual, subversive polyphonic voices of America which explore “the problems of individuals, white ones and black ones” (Hurston qtd. in Wintz 479). In Dust
Tracks Hurston claims that “Negroes are so much like the rest of America” (243). Thus, Their Eyes is able to “pull the cultural rug out from under the readers’ feet”, as Sharon Davie
proposes in her article “Free Mules, Talking Buzzards, and Cracked Plates: The Politics of Dislocation in Their Eyes Were Watching God” because, when looking past the racialized narrative, the characters and their desire for discursive control are universally identifiable (446). Even Janie’s conversation with her “kissin’-friend” (10), which structures the novel, enforces a power divide as Phoeby, “eager to feel and do through Janie”, permits Janie’s dominant confessional mode as an opportune occasion to highlight the need for social and historical change (9). Ironically, their lengthy discussion denies Janie’s vocal capacity to some extent because she states “You can tell ’em what Ah say” as Phoeby takes on the role of messenger (8). Their Eyes relies on Janie and Phoeby’s intimacy to reveal Hurston’s
Signification on the belief that America is founded on “only two dividins [sic]” of society presented in Toomer’s Cane (217). Therefore, in contrast to Gates’ analysis, Hurston’s political messages evidently predominantly lie beyond her adorned language.
Gates recognises the political significance of Hurston’s innovative use of free indirect discourse in Their Eyes in which she “showed the tradition just how dialect could create a new voice, a voice exactly as black as it is white” (Signifying 269). He notes that Hurston Signifies upon the African-American “trope of the Talking Book”, which aimed to display the vernacular voice in Western letters, by dialogising black dialect with the standard English idiom to create a third language (Signifying 143). Thus, Gates, perhaps wilfully naïvely, assumes the blending of the distinct voices resolves their historical tension. Remarkably, he articulates the irony of such an achievement himself when he explains “it is a bivocal utterance […] that no one could have spoken, yet which we recognize because of its
characteristic ‘speakerliness’” (Signifying 223). He proposes instances in which the American dialects dialogise, such as in the free indirect recollection of the stories when “all de angels doing the ring-shout round and round de throne […] brought them back to Tea Cake. How come he couldn’t hit that box a lick or two?”, depicts a biracial voice intimating that the distinct American voices can peacefully coexist (208–209). However, according to Bakhtin in his essay “Heteroglossia in the novel”, this double-voice “is merely a game, a tempest in a teapot” because the bivocal utterances embody an irresolvable power struggle (219). Notably, in his article “‘The Hierarchy Itself: Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and the Sacrifice of Narrative Authority’”, Ryan Simmons proposes that “dialogic discourse must work to break down the language of the empowered”, and so Hurston’s controversial free indirect discourse, undeniably reveals the considerable tension between the two subversive discourses (190). The black vernacular inevitably confronts the dominant language by altering its idiom “to fundamentally challenge any notion of a unitary American discourse” and, outstandingly, in the inability for free indirect discourse to be spoken, Hurston suggests that American discourses could forever be divided (Messent 287).
In addition to never expressing why Hurston employs the internal/external binary to portray Janie’s experience other than to parallel the free indirect discourse which symbolises “her interrupted passage from outside to inside” (Signifying 223), Gates fails to recognise Hurston’s wider exposure of sexual divisions in what Butler calls the “consolidation of the heterosexual imperative” in her book Bodies That Matter, beyond her trickster politics (xiv). Hurston situates her analysis of socio-economic conditions, ideologies, and culture within a universal monolithic capitalist framework which imitates existing monoglossic discursive strife within linguistic realms to instigate adjustments. Notably, as Ira Horowitz explains in her article “Sexism Hurts Us All”, “On the one hand women are socialised to occupy the role of victim or ‘target’ of the oppression. On the other, men are socialised to occupy the role of perpetrator or ‘agent’ of oppression […] neither role is freely chosen, and because both are learned, they can be unlearned” (75). Dominant masculine voices vocalise this dynamic which enforces the cultural and psychological manipulation of women who, generally, accept their submissive role. Hurston exposes social ironies through Janie’s second marriage as Jody’s assertion that “mah wife don’t know nothin’ bout no speech-makin’” is contradicted by the framed narrative which allows readers to overhear Janie’s story, revealing women’s vocal power once the aphasic role is unlearnt (57). Furthermore, the two opening chiasmuses rendered in universal standard English, which Signify upon Douglass’ canonical text through revision, immediately demarcates the active gender divide as for men, metonymically, “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board”, whereas for women, metaphorically, “The dream is the truth” (1). According to Johanna Brenner and Barbara Laslett in their article “Gender, Social Reproduction, and Women’s Self-Organization: Considering the U.S. Welfare State”, in 1930s America, “feminism was fundamentally marginalized in political organization and political discourse” and so Hurston employs a black feminist intersectional
strategy by submerging her politics beneath a phallogocentric narrative to expose oppressive distinctions and topple the moral pedestal upon which her imperceptive readers stand (322).
According to Harriet Jacobs, “Woman can whisper––her cruel wrongs into the ear of a very dear friend––much easier than she can record them”, and so through Janie’s
confessional bildungsroman, Hurston reveals reductive binaries to inspire action against contradictory social frameworks (qtd. in Sorisio 217). In her book, Alice Walker and Zora
Neale Hurston: The Common Bond, Lillie Howard proposes that Their Eyes has “universal
implications for women in that it protests against the restrictions and limitations imposed upon women by a masculine society” as the polarised allocation of vocal power and gender roles expose the disconcerting widespread internalisation of cultural norms (93). When Logan Killicks attempts to revert normative standards by purchasing “uh mule all gentled up so even uh woman kin handle ’im” (36), thereby enabling Janie to enter the masculine workspace as an equal, Janie retorts from the kitchen “Youse in yo’ place and Ah’m in mine” (42). Janie’s self-inflicted regulation speaks widely for the psychological ramifications of the arrangement of labour in America which conditions the psyche as, like the mule, women must carry the burden of society’s constraints. In her biography Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora
Neale Hurston, Valerie Boyd claims that “marriage, Hurston seems to say, is a deadly
proportion: someone has to give up his or her life” and, therefore, voice (304). Janie’s
marriages correspondingly pose severe verbal limitations which expect her to “dry up” as her femininity becomes synonymous with silence in her metamorphic search for autonomy (42). Ironically, Janie’s seemingly liberating relationship with Tea Cake should likewise be perceived as unbalanced because, as Todd McGowan outlines in his article “Liberation and Domination: Their Eyes Were Watching God and the Evolution of Capitalism”, he “extends and strengthens the hold of domination over Janie because she no longer even recognises the domination as domination” (111). Tea Cake’s assertion that “When Ah ain’t got nothin’ you
don’t git nothin’” (171) is often perceived as an affirmation of love, however, his failing jealous voice controversially inspires the physical diminishment of Janie’s because “Being able to whip her reassured him in possession” (196).
Hurston demystifies the link between political and cultural interests by proposing the desire to be “a big voice” is equally related to the division of race, gender, and class power dynamics (38). Joe believes being outside of the boundaries where “de white folks had all de sayso” (38) and “round three hundred dollars […] in his pocket” (37), he can discursively dominate the “unlettered folks” of Eatonville as the physical embodiment of powerful masculinity (66). Although Joe’s superiority complex appears exclusive to this unique racialized opportunity, the roles available within Eatonville are wholly emblematic of America’s conventional hierarchies aided by socioeconomic inequalities. In particular, Joe’s “bow-down command in his face” and confidence in his linguistic capabilities enforces a class division situating himself and Janie as the bourgeoisie (62). Notably, in Dust Tracks Hurston proposes “God made them duck by duck” (168), an explicit belief system suggesting her distinctive depiction of Joe as “Kind of portly like rich white folks” merely pertains to the superficial racialized reading (45). Certainly, Hurston’s interest lies in enlightening her diverse readership to think race-free and recognise the communal ruptures enforced when the acquisition of one voice largely depends on the silencing of Others. Thus, Joe’s flourishing voice which universally “cowed the town” becomes a synecdoche of oppression that grows to render Janie mute (62). Hurston evidently opposed male supremacy as her analysis of role distributions utilises universal stigmata as an overt political method and parallels Slavoj Žižek’s assertion in his book The Sublime Object of Ideology that individuals “think that they are the subjects giving the king royal treatment because the king is already in himself, outside the relationship to his subjects, a king” (25). Mirrored by Sam’s observation that Jody’s “got
uh throne in de seat of his pants”, Hurston profoundly condemns autocratic capitalistic power distribution (66).
The polyphonic Signifyin(g) rituals which qualify Their Eyes as a “speakerly text”, and are perhaps a response to renewed interest in black culture after the Jazz Age, are radically diminished by Gates’ analysis (195). Gates views moments in which speakers assume control of the narration as being “present in the text more for their own sake than to develop the plot” rather than as a means to reveal communal conflicts that create divides between supposed equals by allowing race to act as a symbolical axis in operation with gender and class (Signifying 214). Remarkably, “the mule-talkers” reveal the ostracising of others from the choric linguistic economy as operations of discursive power are rendered visible (68). Nonetheless, power dynamics intrinsic to “specifying” (Hurston qtd. in Willis 32), such as the reality that “There was always a little seriousness behind the teasing of Matt,” are not limited to African-American experiences (74–75). In their article “Vocal masculinity is a robust dominance signal in men”, Sarah Wolff and David Puts found that “self-rated physical dominance negatively predicts dominance ratings of other men’s voices” and so the mule-talkers’ confidence in their physical presence on the porch creates a divide based upon discursive command (1681). Hence, when Sam indirectly tricks Matt into believing his mule is in danger and then jokes his wife was “usin’ his sides fuh uh wash board”, a machismo linguistic battle commences (69). Their Eyes presents social interaction concerning ethnic identity, social class, and sexual difference as contextually dichotomous to protest against universal restricted participation in the socio-cultural hegemony and violent invisible norms. Linguistic capability affords power and control and therefore, Matt’s
stammering response that “Ah-ah-ah d-d-does feed ’im” is a failed retaliation to the rhetorical play legitimising his eventual exclusion (70). Thus, Hurston reveals the regressive desire to
discursively make others feel like “puny humans” to incite alteration of the stratification of social roles within transparent space (72).
In the introduction of Their Eyes, Zadie Smith claims that “Hurston is essential universal reading because she is neither self-conscious nor restricted” (xx) enabling the exposure of the naturalised discursive objectification of females, for example, through rhetorical “acting-out courtship” rituals (Their Eyes 90). Hurston often characterises women as a singular group based upon the sociological notion of their shared multidimensional oppression and dependency to parody the discursive constructs enforced by ideological institutions. Women are invited onto the monoglossic front porch, so men can “show off”, as Hurston defines in her novel Mules and Men, using hyperbolic language to humorously profess their mock-love to an extent predicated on women’s adherence to (white) Western beauty standards (161). Notably, the men acknowledge that Daisy has “negro hair, but it’s got a kind of white flavour”, a characteristic which inspires a linguistic competition to produce the greatest embellished statement, an attractive skill communally associated with dominance (90). Poignantly, when Dave explains “Ah’ll take uh job cleanin’ out de Atlantic Ocean fuh you” to playfully reinforce the provider/provided-for binary specific to patriarchal role divisions, his declaration is not to win Daisy but rather to outdo Jim (92). Additionally, a Same/Other power dichotomy is administered between the men, positing women outside the locker-room style discursive realm. For Hurston, language becomes oppressive when it reproduces polarised conditions, and so when the porch rejoices in “A big burst of laughter at Daisy’s discomforture” she exposes sexual politics as encompassing violent speaking/silent and subject/object rationalistic binaries (91). Several critics suggest that Their Eyes “does not question the binary perspective that divides reality” however, it is Hurston’s very adherence to normative Western divided structures (as an exploration of universalisation must come from a polarised perspective) which advocates social change (Davie 447). Apolitical readings
are precisely why Hurston needed to create an illuminating text revealing “laughter at the expense of women” (Their Eyes 105).
Hurston challenges the domineering presence of the masculine linguistic economy by proposing the division between male and female voices is a flawed distinction. When Janie “wants to castrate” Jody by stripping him of his illusory masculinity and sex appeal, a scene which parallels Butler’s understanding of the subversive female strategy, Janie effectively slays Jody verbally as she recognises the discursive contradictions within the socio-cultural space (Butler Gender 52). Remarkably, Jody’s “kidneys stop working altogether”, an
accomplishment suggesting female vocal competency should never be underestimated (111). When Janie responds “You big-bellies round here and put out a lot of brag, but ’tain’t nothing to it but yo’ big voice. Humph! Talkin’ ’bout me lookin’ old! When you pull down yo’ britches, you look lak de change uh life” her use of the double-descriptive neologism “big-bellies” offers several telling puns (106). Janie Signifies both the image of an overweight haggard man and a heavily pregnant weak woman, in addition to the black vernacular
meaning symbolising a confident, dominant demeanour. Janie’s criticism utilises the conflict
within the structure of the sign by exploiting Bakhtin’s translinguistic double-voiced word, or
“a word with a loophole” which contains both its original semantic white meaning in addition to its altered rhetorical black connotations to free herself (Bakhtin qtd. in Vice 23). The narrator explains that Jody “realized all the meanings and his vanity bled like a flood”
thereby enforcing a menstrual pun linked skilfully to the critique of his ageing feminine body by the alliterative “b” (107). Notably, as Jennifer Jordan explains in her article “Feminist Fantasies: Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God”, “the liberation of black women from sexism […] is to transform all black people and American society” and
