Mrs. Walker
26 August 2009
The Problem: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line” – DuBios. People of color have had the worst of sufferings around the globe, from slavery to racism and hate; DuBios addresses the problem that despite that people of color are free, they suffer the early hate of the post civil war era, and are always known as the “problem” of the white dominated society. For many decades the people of color lived in a state of double consciousness, stuck on the invisible side of a veil that cloaks their voice into silence. In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, the author confronts the same problem through the life of the female heroine Janie and her quest of identity. On her way Janie is met with many challenges that raise eyebrows and gossiping that quickly plagues the people around her like an epidemic, with quick judgment ensuing. The character Janie is naturally at war with herself, constantly in a state of wonder of who she really is, even biologically since she is of mixed blood. On her way to find herself she is in a constant silent battle between the people surrounding her and herself. The issue of having a double consciousness is mostly centered on this problem; Janie has to face and deal with other people’s judgment and has no voice to protest, so she can’t do anything about how they view her. Even when she finds her voice at the end of the story she chooses to be silent and lets the judgment upon herself, like in the courtroom scene after she shoots her husband out of mercy. She lets the people think and say what they will because she feels she’s no longer trapped behind the veil and that the people need to open their eyes wider to truly see what’s behind it. Janie in a way conquers her double consciousness by finding her voice that she thought was lost and choosing when and how to use it. The judgment is still there but the torment and confusion over wondering what the truth really is, ends and no longer needs to be dealt with. Hurston uses Janie’s story to say that being a problem isn’t the end of the world or the beginning of endless suffering; it’s the lack of voice that’ll do a person in, which is a truer problem than that of being colored.
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