ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos


Freedom and Confinement Videos 14 videos

Brave New World
79224 Views

Brave New World is supposed be an exciting book about a negative utopia and the corrupt powers of authority. So where’s the big car chase? What's...

Death of a Salesman
26699 Views

What is the American Dream? Is it popularity? Or is it being content with what you have? In Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman, the American...

Their Eyes Were Watching God
39382 Views

Their eyes may have been watching God, but we think we know who won that staring contest.

See All

Their Eyes Were Watching God 39382 Views


Share It!


Description:

Their eyes may have been watching God, but we think we know who won that staring contest.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:04

Their Eyes Were Watching God, a la Shmoop. Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching

00:11

God was published near the tail end of the modernist movement.

00:15

Is it just like all other Modernist works? Or is there something a bit different going

00:20

on here? Well, what the heck is a modernist work? Let’s

00:24

start there. Laser beams and flying cars?

00:27

Not even close. Modernism is a literary movement that reached its peak between 1890 and 1940.

00:33

It’s bleak stuff for the most part, often conveying the idea that life is chaotic and

00:38

futile and everything must come to an end.[1]

00:41

These aren’t books about robotic dogs. They’re book about robotic dogs dying…

00:49

Or worse – robotic dogs never even existing. So on the one hand, There Eyes Were Watching

00:54

God fits right in among Modernist writers' search for comfort amid existential struggles.

01:00

Just as T.S. Eliot searched for spiritual post-war comfort in The Waste Land…

01:11

…Eyes combines a personal quest for love with larger historical issues like racism,

01:20

slavery, and the oppression of women.

01:23

And hurricanes. Everyone hates hurricanes. On the other hand, there’s something else

01:29

about modernism … it’s very… monochromatic.

01:33

You see… modernism is mostly populated with… white males. Zora Neale Hurston is neither.

01:40

Janie’s problems, as a black woman, don’t fall under the category of Stuff White People

01:46

Like.

01:47

They don’t even fall under the category of Stuff White People in the 1920s Cared About.

01:54

The stuffy modernists were more renaissance than Harlem Renaissance.

02:03

In that sense, Janie’s story isn’t the same as Ezra Pound’s, Eliot’s, or Thomas

02:08

Hardy’s.

02:09

Eliot was too busy cramming as many confusing words as possible into The Waste Land to be

02:13

bothered with race relations and gender oppression.

02:20

And Pound and Hardy were probably shopping for sweater vests.

02:26

Or maybe we just need a different perspective. Perhaps the narrow lens of modernism isn’t

02:31

the right way to look at this novel.

02:33

Hurston wasn't just trying to overcome spiritual emptiness… she was trying to overcome the

02:38

double-oppression of being black and being a woman in the early twentieth century.

02:43

These were issues that no one who wasn’t black and female cared about, so it was quite

02:49

a weight on her shoulders.

02:53

She might have been a modernist, but at the same time, she was challenging the modern

02:57

emphasis placed on white men and white male problems.

03:01

So is this book like all other modernist works because it deals with depressing existential

03:06

conflicts?

03:07

Or is it in a different category because it discusses problems that your typical white

03:11

male modernist couldn’t care less about?

03:13

Or is Hurston a modernist who is challenging other modernists?

03:17

Shmoop amongst yourselves.

03:18

[1]I'm sure this is 100% accurate—or at least it obscures some of what's really important

03:22

about Modernism.

Related Videos

The Importance of Being Earnest Summary
123039 Views

They say that honesty is the best policy, but Jack lies about his identity and still gets the girl. Does that mean we should all lie to get what we...

The Giver Summary
105893 Views

Ever wish you could remember everything that you ever studied? How about everything that everyone has ever studied? Yeah, pretty sure our brains ju...

Invisible Man (Ellison)
1818 Views

Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is an American classic. Hope you're not expecting any exciting shower scenes though. It's not that kind of book.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
1256 Views

Do not go gentle into that good night. In fact, if it's past your curfew, don't go at all into that good night. You just stay in your good bed and...

Quotes: A fool's paradise
294 Views

Find out the meaning behind "a fool's paradise."