Walker's Eyes Were Watching Hurston

Alice Walker adored the writing of Harlem Renaissance-era writer Zora Neale Hurston. Hurston wrote the black Southern woman's experience without apology or self-consciousness. In Walker's book, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens, Walker writes of her quest to find Hurston's unmarked grave in Florida and give her memory the honored she felt she was owed. In Walker's The Color Purple, she memorializes her idol by using similar themes, especially those demonstrated in Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Both novels incorporate themes of sensuality, connections with nature, female relationships and the post-slavery black experience. In Walker's novel The Color Purple, the main character is Celie a black woman in an abusive marriage whose life is marked with suffering. As a very young teenager, Celie's children are taken from her by their father, her step-father. Shortly after, Celie is married off to an abusive man. Celie's husband separates her from her anchor in life, her sister, Nettie. incorporates the tone and style of Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie goes through tragedies similar to Celie's. Janie transforms from a naive little girl to an independent woman who realizes that she must value herself. Janie's pubescent changes is symbolized by the blossoming pear tree. Hurston writes of Janie's pear tree, "It had called her to come and gaze on a mystery. From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; for the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom. It stirred her tremendously," (Hurston 10). Janie experiences sexuality through her identification with nature, she observes the bees harvesting pollen from flowers. "She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace ad the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight! So this was marriage!" (Hurston 11). Janie's innocence and naivete are reflected in Celie's character, despite Celie having birthed two children as a teen. Janie's ideas and observance of sensuality in nature express a more fulfilling and idealistic view of love; something that neither of these women probably every received.

If fact, rather than looking for romantic satisfaction, Celie endures more sexual abuse than Janie---almost as if Walker wanted to emphasize the black woman's struggle more than Hurston. Also, as characters, Janie has more awareness than Celie has at the beginning of The Color Purple. Janie's experiences are more poignant.