Zora Neale Hurston's underlying theme of self-expression and independence is one that is startling for its day. And, that a young girl with no worldy experience arrives at the realization that she is an emotional slave to the men that she has married is equally unusual. However, this theme underscores Hurston's desire to create, in her own words, "an alternative culture that validated their worth as human beings." And, Hurston contends that black people, while living in the Jim Crow world, could still "attain personal identity by not transcending the culture, but by embracing it."
Clearly, Zora Neale Hurston was much ahead of her time with these motifs. Truly, "their eyes were watching God" and not looking down at the earth as many others did in her era. Hurston and her character Janie knew, in the words of Lord Byron, that a person's "reach should exceed his (her) grasp--Else what's a heaven for?" Hurston's message is an existential one, while at the same time encouraging the belief in one's culture.
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