got to find out about livin' fuh theyselves," are the sentiments shared by Janie once her journey is over (Their Eyes 183). Embodying a theme of the novel, this discovery directly contradicts the anti - religion themes employed by Wright. Hurston has portrayed a female character as an emergent heroine, a creator of her own destiny, and one who has mastered the journey for self-awareness. Says Mary Helen Washington in the Foreword of Their Eyes Were Watching God, "for most Black women readers discovering Their Eyes for the first time, what was most compelling was the figure of Janie Crawford - powerful, articulate, self-reliant, and radically different from any woman character they had ever before encountered in literature." Janie Crawford is defiant; she defies men, but most importantly, she defies our own preconceived notions of what the role of an African-American woman should be in modern literature. VIII. ConclusionRichard Wright was adamant in his belief that the African-American intellectuals had a responsibility to all of America to use their talent to convey the suffering of their people to the white world, to collaborate with the white world in the fight against war. In criticizing writers that did not adhere to his ideals, Wright virtually deemed the Black female experience as nonexistent. He attributed this largely to the lack of political themes and racial tensions in the works of many female Black authors, most notably Hurston. In choosing to focus on topics other than the racial plight (as well as those that revolve around women), the Black female was often determined to be a traitor by the Black male, who considered her work to be in direct opposition to his own. Initially, it seems rather ironic that two authors who are considered contemporaries, should create such drastically different pieces of literature. One might expect both Wright and Hurston to possess a need to express, not only their anger at, but also their in...
