A critical literary analysis of Vodou influence in Zora Neal Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God.

1. Cody Anthony
ENG 498
Dr. Preussner
11/26/12
Tell My Horse She is Free: Role of Vodou Symbolism in Their Eyes Were Watching
God
Zora Neal Hurston’s most popular novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, was
written during the seven weeks that the author lived in Haiti, researching and
participating in Haitian Vodou practice. Her research into Vodou became later published
in 1938 as Tell My Horse, a year after her novel was written, yet little scholarship
currently exists that relates Their Eyes Were Watching God to Vodou symbolism and
meaning.
In order to understand how Vodou functions within Their Eyes Were Watching
God, it’s essential to first establish a basic understanding of Vodou spiritual belief and
how it functions in Haiti. For most outsiders, Vodou represents a fear of the unknown
associated with images of dark magic, witchcraft, malignant spirits, blood drinking, and
human sacrifice. This popular portrayal of Vodou spiritual practice has persisted since the
American occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934, when the media portrayed these images
in order to effectively marginalize and exploit African diasporic religions and categorize
all people of African descent within a subordinate category based on a concept of racial
Otherness (Dayan, 13).
Due to this wide-spread misconception, Vodou has remained consistently
misunderstood and misinterpreted among the Western world. Keeping with contemporary
scholarship, I have adopted the less common Africanized spelling within the context of
this study (as opposed to Voodoo) in order to draw critical focus on the religion’s African
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2. descent and to separate Vodou spiritual practice from its more common prejudicial
interpretation. “Vodou” derives itself from “Vodoun”, belonging to the Fon tribe of West
Africa, and translated literally means “spirit” (Dayan, 13). Joseph Murphy summarizes
Vodou best when he says, “Vodou is a dance of the spirit: a system of movements,
gestures, prayers, and songs in veneration of the invisible forces of life” (10). Vodou is a
complex religion of performative spiritual action, syncretically infusing elements of
various African diasporic religions along with certain rites from French colonial
Catholicism. Throughout daily life, the devoted Haitian community performs ritualized
services to the loa (the sacred African spirits revered by Vodouisants) and in exchange
for their faithful service the loa responds to the needs of the community. Vodou
cosmology contains thousands of loa, and a loa can contain any number of multiple
aspects, or personalities, that address differing community needs. The spirits themselves
are not abstract entities as in Western religion, but rather are tangible, invisible forces that
actively govern community life. When the loa wish to address their community, they
“mount” one of their subjects as a rider mounts a horse, speaking and acting out their will
for the community through the body of their “horse.” “Tell my horse,” is a commonly
spoken loa expression indicating that the devotee is under possession and that his actions
and words belong to the loa riding him, rather than to the devotee (Tell My Horse, 221).
It is within the spirit of Vodou that Zora Neal Hurston finds herself while writing
Their Eyes Are Watching God, as she experiences firsthand the transformative power that
the Vodou spirit possesses during ritualized Vodou ceremony. Hurston draws specifically
on two powerful spirits that are integral to Vodou faith, permeating throughout all aspects
of the religion and likewise throughout her entire novel: the spirits of resistance and
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3. healing. In Vodou teaching, these two spirits can be seen embodied in the two primary
aspects of the loa: the Rada and Petro sects. Karen Brown acknowledges in her case study
of Haitian spirituality that “First, healing is the primary business. In fact, it is not an
overstatement to say that spirituality and healing are synonymous” (2). All Vodou
ceremony is a healing rite in some respect. The Rada aspects of the loa are known as the
benevolent forces of life, descended directly from West Africa (Tell My Horse, 116).
These loa are merciful guardians of the universe and associated with images of healing,
rebirth, and rejuvenation for the community as they reunite displaced African
descendants with the cultural values of their homeland. The Petro aspects of the loa,
however, are contradictory opposites; they are aggressive, vengeful spirits that didn’t
begin in Africa, but rather emerged during the Haitian Revolution. Murphy notes as well
the cultural significance of the Petro rite, stating that “it was at such a Petro ceremony
that Haitian slaves began their role in the revolution.” This spirit of cultural resistance
continues to live on in Vodou, and gives Vodou its “critical force and fearsome edge” as
seen by outsiders to the faith (11).
We’ve now established how the spirits of Vodou relate specifically to African
descendants in Haiti, but how does that same Vodou spirit function in Their Eyes Were
Watching God, an African-American novel written at the peak of the Harlem Renaissance
and centered around African-American community values? Dayan reminds us that
“When the gods left Africa, they taught their people how to live the epic of displacement.
No longer simply identifiable in terms of parentage or place, they would come into the
heads of their people and there urge a return to a thought of origin” (16). It’s important
to remember that the loa, much like Hurston herself, do not limit their service to Haiti
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4. alone, but rather serve all African diasporic communities as a common people who share
a similar cultural experience. Haiti is a successful example of how the spirits of healing
and resistance present in Vodou create a powerful transformative catalyst that empowers
black communities. J.N.K. Mugambi notes that “every culture has made an impact on
world history, and has done so only after it has discovered and affirmed ‘its roots’ and
traced them to antiquity (111). In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Vodou symbolism
traces the plight of African-Americans back to their African cultural roots, and with the
spirits of healing and resistance . reawaken the “African” in African-American cultural
identity.
Simultaneously, Zora Neal Hurston does not fail to recognize either in her inter-
textual fusion of Vodou symbolism the Vodou spirit’s potential for dynamic
transformation in the political lives of women. Political resistance is a major part of
Vodou, and in Haitian communities has always been a vehicle for women’s social
empowerment, manifesting itself primarily in the loa Ezili, the goddess of love, feminine
strength, and beauty (Mama Lola, 254). Vodou imagery manifests itself within Their
Eyes Were Watching God primarily in the invocation of Ezili, who possesses and
empowers Janie in moments of difficult social struggle. Ezili remains present but largely
invisible throughout the most of the text (much like the loa themselves in daily communal
life) until she becomes invoked performatively by Janie’s actions in moments of social
need. For the remainder of this study, we will now identify those aspects of Ezili invoked
in Janie and analyze the way that the symbolic Vodou imagery creates a spirit of cultural
and political transformation for the lives of women and African Americans. We will
identify both the Rada and Petro aspects of Ezili in the text: Ezili Freda and Ezili Danto.
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5. Ezili Freda functions primarily as an African-American cultural healer, while Ezili Danto
functions specifically as a defender of woman’s rights to autonomy and self-
determination.
Since healing is the primary business of Vodou, it makes sense that the
benevolent Rada spirit Ezili Freda would be the one invoked most throughout the novel.
In terms of physical appearance and manner, Janie most often reflects aspects of Ezili
Freda. Ezili Freda is the loa of unconditional love and perfect feminine beauty, the
potential lover of all Haitian men, and a source of jealousy for all women (Smith, 6).
When we as readers are first introduced to Janie, she is described in very overt, sexual
language from the perspective of the male observers in the community.
The men noticed her firm buttocks like she had grape fruits in her pockets; the
great rope of black hair swinging to her waist and unraveling in the wind like a
plume; then her pugnacious breasts trying to bore holes in her shirt. They, the
men, were saving for their mind what they lost with the eye (2).
Similarly, Hurston’s description of Janie closely parallels the description of Ezili Freda
given by ethnographer Alfred Métraux in his classic study Voodoo in Haiti:
At last, in the full glory of her seductiveness, with hair unbound to make her look
like a long haired half-caste, Ezili makes her entrance…She walks slowly,
swinging her hips, throwing saucy, ogling looks at the men or pausing for a kiss
or caress (111).
Both Janie and Ezili Freda contain perfect female attributes that incite the men’s desires
and women’s jealousies; both have straight, long black hair; and interestingly both are
perpetually youthful mulatta women. Although Janie does not seek to solicit male
attention, we can interpret Janie’s overt sensuality as a sudden channeling of Ezili Freda.
Likewise, we also witness a sudden blossoming desire for love in the second chapter, ripe
with sexually charged metaphors of springtime and flowers.
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6. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-
calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root
to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was
a marriage! (11).
Flowers are a common gift presented to Ezili Freda by Vodouisants seeking a spiritual
union with the goddess (Tell My Horse, 121). The recurrence of flower imagery and
sexualized springtime metaphors before each of Janie’s marriages indicates the
invocation of Ezili Freda, whose presence continues to serve Janie and can be seen within
the text at each of these moments. As with Ezili Freda, the flowery goddess of sweet and
delicate fineries, Janie conceptualizes love throughout the novel in sexually symbolic
imagery indicating a new season of growth and rebirth (Collins, 141). For Janie, the
sexual reawakening as Ezili Freda is the first initiative step in her own personal quest for
self-determining love, and like Ezili Freda she seeks this ultimate aim through a series of
non-lasting, childless marriages with different men.
Just as all Vodou ceremonies begin with songs, dances, and prayers in honor of
Legba, the keeper of the crossroads, so to does the novel begin with an invocation of him
(Lamothe, 161). Legba is the medium between the spiritual and physical worlds, and
must be summoned first to prepare the way for other loa who wish to present themselves
in service to their followers. Janie conjures the power of Legba when she walks “down to
the front gate” (11), searching the horizon and contemplating the pear tree. Both the gate
and the horizon symbolize Legba’s ceremonial presence, while the pear tree symbolizes
the great Vodou tree Loko. All Vodou ceremony takes place beneath the shade of this
great symbolic tree, whose roots reach deep below into Ginen, the ancestral African
home of the loa. It’s through these roots that the loa are drawn into the living world
(Murphy, 38). Legba’s presence signals a potential opportunity for transformation in
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7. Janie’s life, brought to her through her initiation into a spiritual union with Ezili Freda.
This opportunity for transformation is not solely limited to Janie, however, as the
imagery of Vodou ceremonial and the great tree Loko also implicitly indicates a strong
community presence.
On a deeper symbolic level, the Vodou loa with their roots in Ginen represent the
collective unconscious of Africa, and a connection to the loa symbolizes a reconnection
to an African cultural identity. Janie’s Nanny addresses the main problem for all African-
Americans when she says “You know honey, us colored foks is branches without roots”
(16). Janie’s plight then, by extension of symbolic allegory, is also the plight of all
African-Americans, and the invocation of Vodou ceremony is an address to the African-
American community. Janie is uprooted from her cultural home, just like all children
born from the African Diaspora. Yet the transformative spirit of Vodou continues to
follow Janie and dwell within her head, as referenced by the recurrent imagery of the pear
tree and flowers invoking ceremony with Legba and Ezili Freda. Vodou, therefore,
symbolizes a potential opportunity for African-American cultural transformation, a
reemergence of an empowering cultural identity with its roots traced back to antiquity
(Mugambi, 111).
Once Janie is initially reborn as a devoted initiate of Ezili Freda and begins her
personal quest through life, each new reappearance of the goddess signals a major
transformation that improves Janie’s standard of living and initiates her into the next step
towards self-fulfillment. For African-Americans, it’s understood that each new step in
Janie’s journey represents a collective step towards cultural healing and a unified
African-American self. This transformative healing power is accessible to the African-
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8. American community if they choose to walk in the footsteps of Janie and opens
themselves to the promise of cultural identity embodied in the African loa.
Janie’s first possession by Ezili Freda instantly triggers several major
transformations. Janie is suddenly no longer seen as a young girl, as Nanny realizes
“youse got yo’ womanhood on yuh” (12). This transformation from young girl to young
woman leads to further transformation, as Janie is thrust into her first marriage with
Logan Killicks. Janie’s marriage, while not a satisfying relationship, releases Janie’s from
the fenced-in confines of Nanny’s house and frees her from the constraints of Nanny’s
ideological trappings. Nanny still harbors a slave-driven ideology where “The white man
is the ruler of everything” and African-Americans are “the mules of the world” (14).
Symbolically, Nanny’s house represent’s the damaging confines of southern plantation
culture from which African-American culture began. Because of Janie’s initial
transformation by Ezili Freda, her basic survival is no longer threatened and she can live
without the perpetual fear of violence that Nanny harbors. This vision of African-
American culture reflects the present condition as Hurston views it, while continued
transformations by the loa reflect a prophetic African-American vision of the future as
Hurston would someday hope to see it.
When Janie’s first attempt at love fails she turns her attention once again to the
horizon, calling up Legba and re-channeling the spirit of Ezili Freda. Opportunity
presents itself again as Janie meets Jody Stark on the road, who promises the horizon to
her in a marriage of silk, Ezili Freda’s favorite fabric (28). In Janie’s second marriage,
she embodies most Ezili Freda’s spirit, who symbolizes in Haitian culture a rising out of
lower class status into a position of authority and wealth (Mama Lola, 248). By
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9. channeling the spirit of healing present in Ezili Freda, African-American cultural identity
is growing closer to self-fulfillment in the novel. Not only is the community moving up in
class, but it is beginning to move away from marginalization in Eatonville, where
African-Americans have their own stores and are elected into leadership positions. Janie
gains financially sustainability and economic power, though she has yet to fully reach
self-determination and emotional satisfaction. Eatonville still has its problems; Hicks
summarizes the African-American condition in Eatonville best when he says, “Us talks
about the white man keepin’ us down! Shucks! He don’t have tuh. Us keeps our own
selves down” (39). Janie is still isolated from a sense of cultural community and finds
herself stifled in Eatonville under the oppression of white Euro-centric cultural values
still embraced by both Jody and the black community as a whole.
In Janie’s third and final channeling of Ezili Freda, she finally realizes a
transformation that integrates a wholly unified African-American self. This cultural
awakening occurs when Janie finds her perfect union in Tea Cake Woods. The name
“Woods” connects Tea Cake with the symbol of the tree and he is described by Janie as
wearing “the sun for a shawl” (193), another invocation of Legba who traverses the sky
with the sun at his back (Desmangles, 110). Legba is also husband to Ezili Freda, whose
eventual union with the goddess is implicitly foreshadowed throughout the course of
Janie’s possessions. The sweet name Tea Cake suggests that Janie’s desires for self-
determining love are fulfilled in final marriage, yet why is it that Janie finally succeeds
with Tea Cake in fulfilling her dreams? In Janie’s final marriage, Tea Cake is the “horse”
of Legba who offers Janie a spiritual marriage to the African Diaspora. Janie and Tea
Cake’s relationship indicates a perfect melding of African-American culture with ancient
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10. African cultural traditions (Smith, 11). Janie finally finds community acceptance on the
Muck where her and Tea Cake live and participate in ritualized song and dance among
both African-Americans and Afro-Caribbean immigrants, suggesting that an acceptance
of African cultural values is the only solution for community healing. The loa can work
to heal all peoples of African descent in the healing spirit of a community reconnected to
its ancient cultural roots.
The Petro loa Ezili Danto appears much less prevalently in Their Eyes Were
Watching God than her Rada counterpart Ezili Freda, yet her important role within the
text is by no means diminished. In contrast to Ezili Freda, Ezili Danto is the goddess of
motherhood and defender of woman. She dresses plainly and loves to work, often using
her identity as single mother “to flout the authority of the patriarchal family” (Mama
Lola, 229). Ezili Danto’s aggressive and violent nature reveals itself in moments of crisis;
like a mother protecting her children she will always “rush to the side of the person in
trouble” (Mama Lola, 229). Ezili Danto manifests herself in Janie’s life specifically
during peak moments of crisis brought upon by woman’s disenfranchised position within
the patriarchal system. Through the channeling of Ezili Danto, Janie is politically
empowered and gains a revolutionary spirit enabling her to resist masculine authority
while still embracing the virtues of female identity.
Ezili Danto does not make her presence known in the novel until Janie reaches her
first moment of true crisis in her marriage with Jody Starks. Hurston writes that “The
years had taken all the fight out of Janie’s face. For a while she thought it was gone from
her soul” (76). Ezili Danto, unable to stand back any longer and witness the verbal and
emotional abuse inflicted upon Janie, begins empowering Janie with strength needed to
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11. overcome Jody’s abuse. Jody forces Janie to wear a head scarf, effectively hiding her hair
and masking her attractiveness. Ezili Danto subverts this display of patriarchal authority,
however, as the head scarf (or moshwa) is a symbol for the goddess (Smith, 10) and
allows Ezili Danto an opportunity to enter the head of Janie, granting her sustained
endurance and a new revolutionary spirit against the patriarchal oppression of the men in
Eatonville. Janie’s mind begins to build itself in defense to Jody while she imagines
herself in the store “under a shady tree with the wind blowing through her hair and her
clothes” (77). The tree recalls Legba and the Vodou spirit once again, this time in
resistance to Jody’s oppression, subverting the value of the physical labor he continues to
impress upon her.
The Petro rage of Ezili Danto eventually culminates in an open mockery of
women among the men of Eatonville, with Jody attacking the very image of Janie’s
feminine sexual identity. When Janie makes a mistake cutting a plug of tobacco for Steve
Mixon in the store, Mixon, Jody, and the other men comment:
“Looka heah, Brother Mayor, whut yo’ wife done took and done.” It was cut
comical, so everybody laughed at it. “Uh woman and a knife—no kind of uh
knife, don’t b’long tuhgether.” There was some more good-natured laughter at the
expense of women. Jody didn’t laugh. He hurried across from the post office side
and took the plug of tobacco away from Mixon and cut it again. Cut it exactly on
the mark and glared at Janie. “I God Almighty! A woman stay round uh store till
she get old as Methusalem and still can’t cut a thing like a plug of tobacco! Don’t
stand dere rollin’ yo’ pop eyes at me wid yo’ rump hangin’ nearly to yo’ knees!”
(78).
At this moment in the text, the rage of Ezili Danto breaks loose in response to the public
debauchery of both feminine sexual identity and woman’s physical and mental
capabilities. Ezili Danto relates particularly well to the masculine use of public space as
means of politically defrauding women of their rights. Karen Brown writes in Mama
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12. Lola that “Ezili Danto fought fiercely beside her ‘children’ in the Haitian slave
revolution”, but that “In that war, she was going to talk, to tell something, and then they
[Haitian men] cut out her own tongue because they don’t want her to talk” (229). She was
made speechless by her own people who feared she would utter their secrets; now when
she possesses someone the only sound she can make is “dey-dey-dey” (229). Ezili
Danto’s presence, while previously implicit in the text, suddenly transforms into political
action as Janie summons a voice against Jody and the men of Eatonville that previously
she’d never used nor even knew that she could possess. Janie takes advantage of the
public arena, telling Jody,
Naw, Ah ain’t no young gal no mo’ but den ah ain’t no old woman neither. Ah
reckon Ah looks my age too. But Ah’m a woman every inch of me, and Ah know
it. Dat’s a whole lot more’n you kin say. You big-bellies round here and put out a
lot of brag, but tain’t nothing to it but yo’ big voice. Humph! Talkin’ bout me
lookin’ old! When you pull down yo’ britches, you look lak de change uh life
(79).
Within this passage, Janie suddenly transforms into a woman who not only has
discovered she has a voice, but also knows how to use this voice politically in her own
defense. Janie identifies the power of voice in her recognition of the authority that Joe’s
“big voice” embodies, then subverts that same authority with her own by deconstructing
the male-constructed idea of the phallic image as a symbol of dominant superiority. In
doing so before the entire town, Janie “robbed him of his illusion of irresistible maleness
that all men cherish” (79) and effectively broke down Jody’s hierarchy of established
dominance in the community, as they envied his things but “pitied the man who owned
them” (79). Janie’s speech contains its own symbolic significance as well, as the
invocation of Ezili Danto’s voice suggest that the female Vodou spirit has finally healed
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13. enough to share her secrets. In the contemporary political climate, women can finally be
free to speak.
After Janie’s initial political transformation, Ezili Danto continues to fight for
Janie rights to autonomy and self-determination, with each invocation growing
increasingly more aggressive and violent. The gender dynamic within the text sees a
political shift as well, as Janie is made stronger while Jody continues growing physically
weaker. Danto’s maternal rage seals Jody’s fate; she cannot be appeased until the man
pays with his own life in retribution for the crime of using the “ruling chair” (87) to
manipulate and control Janie’s life and the lives of others who live in Eatonville.
Janie become a free woman after Jody’s death and begins actively making her
own life decisions. She has the financial backing to do as she chooses in life, and now
sees through the lies of the men in Eatonville who only wish to manipulate Janie for her
money. Janie chooses her final marriage with Tea Cake Woods, embodying Ezili Danto
further as Janie makes her first self-determining act within the novel. Janie’s relationship
with Tea Cake on the Muck represents the possibility for gendered equality: a bee to
Janie’s blossom (106). Janie and Tea Cake partake in everything equally; they fish, hunt,
drive, and play checkers together. In the bean fields, Janie chooses to work side-by-side
with Tea Cake in her denim overalls, conjuring once again the image of Danto who loves
to work in heavy overalls.
Although Janie and Tea Cake’s relationship represents both a perfect spiritual
union and an opportunity for gendered equality, Hurston reminds us that this vision is
still fraught with obstacles and peril. Tragedy befalls in that Tea Cake cannot completely
remove himself from the social realities that he lives in. When Mrs. Turner expresses a
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14. desire to set Janie up with her brother, Tea Cake’s fear and male insecurity takes over as
he slaps Janie around to show Mrs. Turner and everyone on the muck “who is boss”
(147). Tea Cake’s behavior is met with approval by the other men on the Muck when
Sop-de-Bottom says, “Lawd! Wouldn’t ah love tuh whip uh tender woman lak Janie! Ah
bet she don’t even holler. She jus’ cries, eh Tea Cake?” (148). In this tragic scene Tea
Cake suddenly becomes symbolic of male patriarchal force as previously represented by
Jody with the Muck reminiscent of Eatonville, which once again upsets Ezili Danto and
incites her lethal rage.
The final display of Ezili Danto’s political fury manifests itself in a heavy storm
developing over the Muck. Brown writes that
Danto’s anger can exceed what is required for strict discipline. At times, it
explodes from her with an irrational, violent force. Ezili Danto has connections
with water…Thus Danto’s rage can emerge with the elemental force of a
torrential rain, which sweeps away just and unjust alike (231).
The growing storm that approaches the Muck parallels in many ways the Biblical story of
the Great Flood from the Book of Genesis. The wicked that Ezili Danto wishes to punish
is the symbol of man who uses patriarchy to dominate and control women’s lives, but in
her irrational fury noone, man or women, is entirely safe. As in the Biblical story, the
storm is a warning and a message to all of patriarchal society. For those who ignore the
rights of women, there will be destruction.
Symbolically, this parallel with the Biblical myth calls forth another deity for
comparison with Ezili Danto: the image of the Christian God. In the midst of the storm,
Janie, Tea Cake, and the others of the Muck “sat in company…Their souls asking if He
meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but
their eyes were watching God” (160). Just as everyone ignores the warnings of a
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15. masculine God in the Biblical story, all the men of the Muck, with Tea Cake as their
spokesman, ignore the warnings of the goddess represented by the fleeing Native
Americans and native animals. Instead of appeasing the enraged defender of womanhood,
they insult her further by turning to the Christian God, the ultimate patriarchal symbol,
and idolizing the example of the white patriarchal authority which refuses to
acknowledge Ezili Danto as a real threat to them. Janie is guilty of wrongdoing as well,
for she betrays the goddess’ trust by deferring to Tea Cake’s authority rather than heeding
her own private warnings. Danto is most sensitive to personal betrayal by her own
people, and in the spirit of revolution unleashes the destructive fury of the hurricane
against everyone on the Muck.
Noone escapes the punishment of Ezili Danto, “who must sometimes turn the
world upside down to protect and provide for her children” (Mama Lola, 232). While
fleeing from the storm, Tea Cake is bitten by a rabid dog and slowly descends into a state
of dementia. Métraux writes that madness is nearly always a supernatural punishment
(99). Janies punishment for her betrayal of the goddess is the most cruel; she is made to
choose between death or shooting Tea Cake, the only man she’s ever loved, in defense of
her own life. In choosing her life over Tea Cake’s, however, Janie is also the most
rewarded, for she leaves the Muck as a fully integrated woman with full self-autonomy
and agency in her life. Because Tea Cake’s death was out of her control, Janie is also
allowed the feel of Tea Cake’s presence, the memory of their love, and the hopeful
promise for gendered equality. Out of the chaos of revolution, new hope is reborn.
In studying Their Eyes Were Watching God through a Vodou lens, we’ve now
gained both an in-depth understanding of the Vodou spirit and how that spirit functions
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16. within Hurston’s text. The invisible presence of the loa has been made visible, opening
the novel up to an entirely new interpretation based on a web of symbolic Vodou
meaning. At the heart of the Vodou spirit is the power to transform. In applying this spirit
to literature through the loa Ezili Freda and Ezili Danto, we observe the everyday,
personal story of Janie Crawford transform into a potential roadmap for African-
American cultural healing and female self-autonomy. At the end of the novel, Zora Neal
Hurston reminds the reader again by leaving Janie’s story in the hands of Pheoby that the
lessons Vodou has to teach are beneficial for the individual, but are meant for the entire
community. In embodying the spirit of Vodou, individuals embody the potential of gods.
We become the vehicles of our own transformation and empower ourselves to make the
changes necessary to better our society. Our journeys become mythic stories, left to
inspire a whole generation.
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17. Bibliography
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------.Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper Perennial
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Transformation in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God."
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Métraux, Alfred. Voodoo in Haiti. New York: Schocken Books, 1959.
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18. Michel, Claudine, and Patrick Bellegarde-Smith. Vodou in Haitian Life and Culture:
Invisible Powers. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Mugambi, J. N. K. 1989. African Religions and Christianity. Nairobi: Longman Kenya.
Murphy, Joseph M. Working the Spirit: Ceremonies of the African Diaspora. Boston:
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