A Study on Women’s Subjectivity and the Meaning of Love through Their Eyes Were Watching God

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose of this study is to discuss the significance of true love and the subjective women in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Hurston wrote at a time called Harlem Renaissance because at this time many African American writers were active. Harlem Renaissance is a period of national awakening and revival of black people, and it can be divided into the first and second periods.
The first Harlem Renaissance began the flourishing of black art culture in the 1920s, and the second Harlem Renaissance was the 1960s. African American male writers of the time focused mainly on the oppression and resistance of the black people by white people.
However, Hurston focused on the beauty of black language and black literature, unlike African American male writers of those days who valued racial themes or ideological messages. This is related to her interest in black culture and spirit as she studied black folklore in her youth.
Hurston, however, tried to pursue the authenticity of a African American man's life in American society, rather than encouraging a sense of resistance by presenting a one-sided African American man's sacrifice to a white man. Therefore, as a African American female writer, she is realistically describing the problems of African American women's self-growth and love. Therefore, the existing African American male writers criticized that they could not find messages such as racial conflict or oppression in Hurston's works.
Thus, there are various perspectives such as negative and positive viewpoints. What is important is that Hurston, as a African American woman, is genuinely reproducing the life of the African American women she experienced in her work, providing an opportunity to understand the life of a African American woman in American society at the time. In other words, instead of focusing on teaching someone, Hurston wanted to recreate the true picture of the lives of African American women in her work. In other words, in this work, she makes Janie realize the true meaning of love through three marriages and secure women's identity.

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