I explore how Janie defeats her false gods in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. Her false gods signify her oppressors, such as Nanny and Joe, and the constricting conventions of the dominant culture. At each stage of Janie’s development, they pressure her to deify white culture. Janie fights her way out of them and, through the signifyin(g) discourse, comes to find her own voices in life. These voices are paramount to Janie’s growth. As a young girl, Janie is confronted with her grandmother’s desire that Janie have everything she did not have. When her grandmother, Nanny wants Janie to be totally under her control, she calls repeatedly on the Lord. The frequency of these references attests to the depth of her need to achieve her wishes rather than the strength of Nanny’s conviction. Nanny’s apostrophes to God are transformed into Joe’s own ultimately rigid and stultifying godhood. “I god” interjects Joe over and over as he wields his big voice. Joe believes that the acquisitions of wealth and status would make himself a big voice and bring him closer to the white culture which thought him inferior. Hurson details Janie’s fight for self-growth by negating the values imposed by the false gods. Janie has taken on the role of the folk trickster, “the signifying Janie,” and resisted the false gods of the white world.
한국중앙영어영문학회 [The Jungang English Language And Literature Association Of Korea]
설립연도
1968
분야
인문학>영어와문학
소개
본 학회는 영미어문학의 학술연구와 이에 부합하는 아래의 사업을 기획 수행하며,
또한 회원 상호간의 친목을 도모함을 목적으로 한다.
1. 학회지 발간
2. 연구 발표회, 강연회, 공동연구
3. 영미어문학 관련 도서출판
4. 영미어문학 관계 도서 및 자료의 모집 및 비치
5. 기타 본회의 목적 달성에 필요한 사업
간행물
간행물명
영어영문학연구 [The Jungang Journal of English Language and Literature]