摘 要

在佐拉·尼尔·赫斯顿的长篇小说《他们眼望上苍》中，背景细节书写具有

深刻的主题意蕴。本论文从小说中和背景相关的物质细节入手，研究这些细节书写如何帮助刻画人物，尤其是如何帮助呈现主人公珍妮在人生不同阶段的成长。

关键词：佐拉·尼尔·赫斯顿；《他们眼望上苍》；背景书写

Contents

1. Introduction 1
2. Demonstration 2
   1. Setting writings in Janiersquo;s first marriage 3
      1. The pear tree: Janiersquo;s thirst for marriage and love 3
      2. Kitchen of the big house: Janiersquo;s shattered dream 4
   2. Setting writings in Janiersquo;s second marriage 5
      1. The grocery store: Janiersquo;s unequal marriage 5
      2. Headband and hair: Janiersquo;s resistance to tradition 6
   3. Setting writings in Janiersquo;s third marriage 7
      1. Hurricane in Everglades: Janie being purified by the destructive power of nature -8
      2. Gun and guitar: Janiersquo;s epiphany of love and life 9
3. Conclusion 10

Works Cited 12

Bibliography 13

Setting Writings in Their Eyes Were Watching God

Introduction

Zora Neale Hurston was one of the most creative writers of the 20th century, who won a variety of literary awards in her life for her effective and unique contributions to modern American literature. Influenced by family traditions and Southern customs, her works are extensive and varied. Their Eyes Were Watching God, which presenting readers a womanrsquo;s growth process, is one of Hurstonrsquo;s major achievements among her writing career.

Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurstonrsquo;s most famous novel, characterizes Janiersquo;s spiritual growth in different life stages. Janie yearns for the true love, like a flowering pear tree, which looking forward to having a bee to kiss her. She was first forced to marry Logan, a middle-aged black man with 60 acres of land, and then followed Jody Starks, to a small black town under construction to start a new life. Janie did not want to be supported as a canary; she is not willing to live without doing anything. After Jodyrsquo;s death, she goes to Florida to do seasonal work with Dessert. They enjoy the pleasures of common labor and the rich and vivid tradition of poetic dancing in the black seasonal community. Dessert was bitten by a mad dog to save Janie during a sudden flood, and after that, he was suffered from water phobia. He shot Janie unconsciously, and Janie was forced to fight back for self-defense. Finally, the white jury ruled that Janie was not guilty.

Zola Hurstonrsquo;s research in China can be divided into three stages. The first stage is from the 1980s to the end of the 20th century, Chinese critics mostly focused on the authorrsquo;s introduction and the article translation. The second stage is at the beginning of the 21st century, which echoed the voices of the early Western critics, most of them focused on feminist criticism. The third stage is from the beginning of the first decade of the 21st century to the present. It has more diverse perspectives and research topics, such as genre theory perspective of Bildungsroman, Bakhtin carnival theory perspective, narrative multi-modal perspective, New Historicism perspective,

prototype theory perspective, feminist perspective of womenrsquo;s voice and discourse. Western critics mostly look at the growth of the heroine Janie from the feminist point of view. However, the major foreign scholars held a negative attitude at the beginning of the study, because of her advanced narrative techniques, feminist ideas and incompatible with the trend of black protest fiction at that time. For example, Richard Wright considers the novel “has no theme, no information, no thought.”(He 49) Since the early 1970s, when Alice Walker rediscovered the novel