あめりか・コクジン・ジョセイである事(その2)-Their Eyes Were Watching God-

URI http://harp.lib.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/hju/metadata/4978
File
Title
あめりか・コクジン・ジョセイである事(その2)-Their Eyes Were Watching God-
Title Alternative
A Study of Their Eyes Were Watching God-I am a aMERICAN bLACK WoMaN-
Author
氏名 前川 裕治
ヨミ マエカワ ユウジ
別名 MAEKAWA Yuji
Subject
Their Eyes Were Watching God
コクジン
NDC
930.29
Abstract

Deep in Americans and American Literature, there is a way of thinking that the individual should be protected from the mass. The mass is poweful and absolute. It can be seen in such examples as racism and sexism. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston tries to analyze the power of the mass from a broader viewpoint, which is the Western way of thinking, i, e, progress-oriented. When we look back at our history, what we have thought much of is overcoming competition. We can say the same thing of our literature, too. The writer's primary purpose is to go beyond his literary predecessor. In a powerful mass, the existence of the individual tends to be ignored. The challenge to Janie is to secure herself from regimentation, i, e, to aknowledge herself as a Black woman. This is carried out by way of denying old criteria in herself and by trying to make a new interpretation of Black Woman. In addition to this, necessity of securing oneself appears in Nanny's unhappiness and in Janie's of fulfillment. Features of Black culture such as orality are also used to explain the need to secure the individual existence from mass power. Janie's tendency toward self-reflectiveness looks similar to that of the modern hero(ine)s. However, they are obliged to suffer from isolation in compensation for self-acceptance has been made on the basis of the Western-oriented conception. This is indicated by the fact that she comes to have no sense of competitiveness, that she keeps quiet in the last part of this novel, and that Hurston intends to make a distance between the novel and its readers. In addition, literary forms such as call-and-response and "Free Indirect Discourse" are used very effectively to avoid the "Either/Or" way of thinking to get over the ambivalence of the modern hero(ine)s. In this way Janie can accept herself as a part of the whole without losing herself.

Journal Title
広島女学院大学論集
Volume
41
Spage
15
Epage
28
Published Date
1991-12
Publisher
広島女学院大学
ISSN
03748057
Language
jpn
NIIType
Departmental Bulletin Paper
Text Version
出版社版
Old URI
Set
hju