Sense of Selfhood in Zora Neal Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God

Abstract

Sense of selfhood constitutes one of the main ideas of Zora Neale Hurstson’snovels.The central argument in this paper is the quest for identity in Hurstson’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. In the novel the characters identify themselves on the basis of their inner desires and thoughts. This paper explores that identity and selfhood changes according to human situation, realities and experiences. Human being turns into an integrated and self-aware individual through psychological process. This article also attempts to present the Psychological impact of colonialism on the colonized people. It focuses on the oppressionofthe whites on the black people and improper European rationalism and their disregard of the experiences of ‘the other’. The novel shows that people’s attempts and sense of selfhood or identity gains a great success in achieving their goals in the long run.