Location: Home >> Self-redemption of Women—Analysis of Their Eyes Were Watching God from the Perspective of Lacan’s Mirror Image Theory
Their Eyes Were Watching God, one of the novels of Zora Neale Hurston, published in 1937. Since it publishes, all kinds of compliments and critiques appeared. Many aspects of this novel, feminism, black folklore, and theme have received great attention. Nowadays, this novel has become a classical American representative. In the novel, the author presents the life of a black woman who is oppressed by racial and sexual discrimination, but realizes her self-redemption through three marriages. Zora Neale Hurston, a prominent black woman writer in the period of the Harlem Renaissance, is considered as the pioneer of African-American literature and the famous anthropologist. In 1970s, Hurston and her works were rediscovered and studied by many Western scholars. Inher novels, she expressed her unique insights into the reconstruction of black culture and the establishment of black women’s self-identity, had a great influence on other black women writers like Tony Morrison and Alice Walker. Since the protagonist’s marriage experiences are just corespondent to the three stages of this theory, this thesis will use Lacan’s famous theory—Mirror Image Theory—to analyze the heroine of this novel, including how does the black woman been oppressed and how could she manage to establish her self-identity. Analyzing Their Eyes Were Watching God by using Lacan’s mirror image theory has great importance both in understanding this theory and the novel itself.
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