| This paper will investigate popular critical readings of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. I propose that many accepted critical interpretations of
this novel are problematic, especially in their presentation in a classroom setting. By
returning to a close reading of certain sections of the novel as well as reviewing some of
the curriculum used to teach Hurston in current classrooms, this paper will draw attention
to sections of the text that critics such as Richard Wright and Alice Walker have ignored,
glossed over, or even re-fashioned in their critical interpretations. Specifically, I will
analyze the anthropological study, the autobiographical presentation, and the feminist
approach to the text. My analysis intervenes in these discourses and briefly pulls Their
Eyes away from its canonized position in order to reposition the curricular presentation of
Hurston’s novel. |