Alice Walker depicts Zora Neale Hurston's work as providing the African-American literary community with its prime symbol of "racial health - a sense of black people as complete, complex, undiminished human beings" (190). Appropriately, Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, published in 1937, provides an enlightening look at the journey of one of these undiminished human beings, Janie Crawford. Janie's story - based on principles of self-exploration, self-empowerment, and self-liberation - details her loss and subsequent attainment of her innocence, as she constantly learns and grows from her difficult experiences with gender issues and racism in Their Eyes Were Watching God. After joyfully discovering an archetype for sensuality and love under the pear tree at age sixteen, Janie quickly comes to understand the reality of marriage when she marries Logan Killicks, then Joe Starks. Both men attempt to coerce Janie into submission to them by treating her like a possession: where Killicks works Janie like a mule, Joe objectifies her like a medal around his neck. In addition, Janie learns that passion and love are tied to violence, as Killicks threatens to kill her, and both Joe and Tea Cake beat her to assert their dominance. Yet Janie continually struggles to keep her inner Self intact and strong, remaining resilient in spite of her husbands' physical, verbal, and me...
