Similarly to Ellison's documentary, I was surprised at the similarities between Hurston's life and the narrative of Their Eyes Were Watching God. However, this time I know that the book was supposed to be based off of events in Hurston's life. It does a pretty good job of it too, the town scene well depicts Hurston's upbringing in Eatonville, the three husbands match in both the book and her life, and her "floating-ness," (being in the muck with Tea Cake and being on her own in life) also seem to match up fairly well.
I was not under the impression that TEWWG would be based on historical events. It seemed too surreal to function that way. The whole idea that one person can come to a town and literally rule over it in a week and many scenes or coincidences with Tea Cake (just so happens to be walking by Jaine right after her husband died, god-like dice ability, and his passing in the end of the book), just don't seem like they could occur in reality. Although I liked the book, I would rather not analyse it in the context of historical semi-autobiography. It is a fun book to read and I want to appreciate it as a work of fiction.
I really appreciated the surreality of some parts of the book, and like you said, it's fun to read. That said, I think that a lot of the reason that she wrote the book, bearing in mind her undoubtedly white audience, was to show them just how different and interesting African American life is. She was actually criticized by Wright for that. I appreciated reading the novel that way and I think it can be fun to read in its historical context.
ReplyDeleteI'll also add the similarity of Hurston and Janie's reputations getting worse over time--which in Hurston's case happened long after TEWWG was published. Both Janie and Hurston hold their heads up high, past the people on the porch muttering and gossiping about them.
ReplyDeleteI think TEWWG's seemingly detached portrayal of the white world definitely owes itself to Hurston's upbringing in the all-black town of Eatonville. Although I'm sure there had to be some conflict between blacks and whites due to its location in the Jim Crow south, the people of Eatonville were described in the documentary as being proudly self-sufficient and independent from white society. I think the narrative voice in TEWWG clearly reflects the thoughts of someone who isn't primarily concerned with the consequences of being black in a white-dominated world, just as Zora Neale Hurston wasn't.
ReplyDeleteHurston draws on settings and other social dynamics from her own life--with a unique upbringing like hers, in a place like Eatonville, how could she not draw on it for her fiction, as she did for her anthropology. But the novel is still clearly a work of fiction, and like all authors, she writes about what she knows even as she crafts a fictional story. Janie and Hurston may share certain character traits, but their circumstances are also quite different--in fact, the initial "distance" we sense between the third-person narrator and Janie's vernacular voice reflects this "outsider" dynamic, as Hurston's more educated and sophisticated voice tells parts of the story "for" Janie. As a native of Eatonville (and environs) who moved north for her higher education and was a longtime resident of Harlem, Hurston is both insider and outsider to Eatonville culture, and the novel reflects this fact.
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